Life cycle assessment of cassava flour production: A case study in Southwest Nigeria

Global climate change resulting from increased greenhouse gas emission and environmental pollution remain a serious threat to the world. Food processing industries is one of the major contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC) reported that greenhouse gas emission should be reduced to avert the worst effects of climate change. One of the ways to reducing greenhouse gas emission is by assessing the environmental impact associated with food production, and one of the well-known methodologies used for environmental impact evaluation is life cycle assessment model (LCA). This paper presents the results of LCA analysis of cassava flour production in Southwestern Nigeria. The result shows that global warming potential of cassava flour production was 1.105E+01 kg CO2 equivalent, eutrophication 2.632E-03 kg NO3 equivalent and acidification 5.583E-03 kg SO2 equivalent. In this study, the major contributor to global warming is the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from burning of fossil fuel (Coal) used for drying operation which emits 93% of the CO2, while 7% of the total CO2 emission is from the diesel generator. This study has shown that cassava flour production is contributing greatly to environmental global warming potential in Southwest Nigeria.   Key words: Greenhouse gas, life cycle assessment, global warming, eutrophication, acidification.