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    Waste Feathers Processing to Liquid Fertilizers for Sustainable Agriculture—LCA, Economic Evaluation, and Case Study
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    Abstract:
    The poultry meat industry generates about 60 million tons of waste annually. However, such waste can serve as a cheap material source for sustainable liquid fertilizers or biostimulant production. Moreover, its practical potential associated with the circular economy is evident. One of the options for waste feather reprocessing is to use a hydrolysis process, whose operating parameters vary depending on the waste material used. The better the quality of the waste feathers, the less energy is needed; moreover, a higher yield of amino acids and peptides can be achieved. These are the main operational parameters that influence the overall environmental and economic performance of the hydrolysis process. The assessment of process operational environmental aspects confirmed that the environmental impacts of hydrolysate production are highly dependent on the amount of electricity required and its sources. This fact influences the midpoint and the endpoint impacts on the observed environmental impact categories. It also minimizes the pressure associated with fossil resource scarcity and the related impact on climate change. During an economic evaluation of the process, it was found that the option of processing more fine waste, such as CGF, provided a 5% saving in energy costs related to the reduction in the cost per liter of hydrolysate of 4.5%. Finally, a case study experiment confirmed the fertilizing effect of the hydrolysate on pepper plants (biometric parameters, yield). Thus, the hydrolysate produced from the waste feathers can serve as a substitute for nitrate fertilizing, which is commonly drawn from raw fossil materials.
    Keywords:
    Circular Economy
    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): principles and practical implications for industrial projects This article discusses the theoretical and practical aspects of the application of the life cycle assessment (LCA) technique in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process. LCA enables to consider the environmental impacts of the whole production system, including upstream and downstream processes and to estimate their consequences already at the project planning stage. It was illustrated using the case study of the planned furniture production plant representing the industrial sector. The conventional simplified cradle-to-gate LCA analysis, using SimaPro software and the ReCiPe Endpoint method, was performed. It revealed that unlike the findings of EIA made with the support of traditional methods, not waste, airborne emissions and noise, but the particleboard and the fibreboard used by the planned furniture production plant have the most detrimental impact on the environment in all impact categories. The greatest damage it causes in the areas of protection of resources followed by ecosystems. The research proved high applicability of EIALCA approach for the evaluation of the environmental impacts of planned industrial projects.
    Impact assessment
    Industrial Ecology
    Citations (11)
    From the beginning of humanity, our generation has been on the edge of finding suitable solutions to increase the product’s life-cycle and reduce the environmental impact of the product. Life-cycle assessment is a process to evaluate the effects of products or services whereas environmental impact assessment is an inter-related process of evaluating the environmental impact of a product or service. Plant fibre reinforced composites are developed by researchers, which are kindled by economic and environmental trepidations. The forest’s wood resources will decline and deplete due to environmental issues caused by natural and renewable resources. The main objective of this review is to conduct life-cycle assessment and environmental impact assessment studies on plant fibres and manufacturing of bio-composites from these fibres. It identifies the differences and causes to the environment, in particular about the total effect on the surrounding atmosphere. Another aim of this work is to assess a techno-economic feasibility based on the environmental impact category. In addition to this, inventory assessments of these composites are also dealt with, alongside the industrial applications. This review concludes a summary of current research and point out the opportunities and challenges for future researchers.
    Service life
    Renewable resource
    Citations (238)
    It is consequential to reduce the environmental impact of a product for sustainable development in 21st Century. In the field of transportation, especially, the technological market concerned about reduction and assessment of greenhouse gas emission is expected to be extended. The LCA gas been esteemed and utilized as a realistic alternative greenhouse gas emission is expected to be extended. The LCA has been esteemed and utilized as a realistic alternative to improve the environment by the assessment of environmental impacts. In this study, simplified life cycle assessment(S-LCA), was performed to analyze the environmental impacts quantitatively, which were produced through the life cycle of a electric motor unit(EMU). The object of the present work is rth investigate main parameters of environmental impacts and to establish the plans to improve the environment impact of EMU. As a result of quantitative assessment for environmental impact and manufacturing, the EMU carbody made of SUS showed acidification(AD) and marine water aquatic ecotoxicity(MAET) the most, while that made of Mild showed high impact of global warning(GW) and abiotic resources depletion(ARD). For the SUS EMU, the high AD and MAET impact is occurred by the discharged pollutants during acid-washing process. Also, high value of GW and ARD for Mild EMU is resulted from the consumption of iron ore, coal and crude oil during manufacturing. Therefore, the environment impact of carbody would be decreased by enhancing of energy efficiency and the lightening the weight of it.
    Impact assessment
    Ecotoxicity
    Citations (0)
    The transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) in the built environment is vital to reduce resource consumption, emissions and waste generation. To support the development of circular building components, assessment metrics are needed. Previous work identified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as an important method to analyse the environmental performance in a CE context. However, questions arise about how to model and calculate circular buildings components. We develop an LCA model for circular building components in four steps. First, we elaborate on the CE principles and LCA standards to identify requirements and gaps. Second, we adapt LCA standards and propose the ‘Circular Economy Life Cycle Assessment’ (CE-LCA) model. Third, we test the model by assessing an exemplary building component: the Circular Kitchen (CIK). Finally, we evaluate the CE-LCA model with 44 experts. In the CE-LCA model, building components are considered as a composite of parts and materials with different and multiple use cycles; the system boundary is extended to include these cycles, dividing the impacts using a circular allocation approach. The case of the CIK shows that the CE-LCA model supports an ex-ante assessment of circular building components in theoretical context; it makes an important step to support the transition to a circular built environment.
    Circular Economy
    Resource Efficiency
    There is a growing demand for products with low environmental impact due to current and upcoming environmental regulations/policies and increased environmental consumer awareness. Thus, integration of tools, methods, techniques for sustainability into design processes is becoming essential to design greener products. This paper presents a novel environmental impact assessment of lighting products’ conducted at the design stage, with the support of Life Cycle Assessment methods and related tools including Software Simapro. Two lighting products are used in the assessment, the results showed that one of the lighting products had less (total) impact on the environment than the other one, the main difference of impact between both products was located at the manufacturing phase, and their transport and use phases have higher impact within the life-cycle of the products.
    Impact assessment
    Sustainable Design
    Sustainable products
    This study aims to develop a system for assessing the impact of the substances discharged from concrete production process on six environmental impact categories, i.e., global warming (GWP), acidification (AP), eutrophication (EP), abiotic depletion (ADP), ozone depletion (ODP), and photochemical oxidant creation (POCP), using the life a cycle assessment (LCA) method. To achieve this, this study proposed an LCA method specifically applicable to the Korean concrete industry by adapting the ISO standards to suit the Korean situations. The proposed LCA method involves a system that performs environmental impact assessment on the basis of input information on concrete mix design, transport distance, and energy consumption in a batch plant. The Concrete Lifecycle Assessment System (CLAS) thus developed provides user-friendly support for environmental impact assessment with specialized database for concrete mix materials and energy sources. In the case analysis using the CLAS, among the substances discharged from the production of 24 MPa concrete, those contributing to GWP, AP, EP, ADP, ODP, and POCP were assessed to amount to 309 kg-CO₂ eq/m³, 28.7 kg-SO₂ eq/m³, 5.21 kg-PO₄3- eq/m³, 0.000049 kg-CFC11 eq/m³, 34 kg/m³, and 21 kg-Ethylene eq/m³, respectively. Of these six environmental impact categories selected for the LCA in this study, ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was found to contribute most intensely to GWP and POCP, and aggregates, to AP, EP, ODP, and ADP. It was also found that the mix design with increased prop proportion of recycled aggregate was found to contribute to reducing the impact in all other categories.
    Impact assessment
    Citations (40)
    In order to perfect the environmental impact assessment method,a study about environmental impact assessment method for domestic wood construction based on life cycle assessment and modes of life cycle assessment established by domestic and foreign scholars was conducted,four steps including goal and scope definition,inventory analysis,impact assessment and interpretation were set forth and the impact assessment for wood construction was specially introduced,the development direction of life cycle assessment for wood construction was pointed out.
    Scope (computer science)
    Impact assessment
    Inventory analysis
    Quantitative assessment
    Life cycle inventory
    Citations (0)