LCA analysis of greenhouse tomato producers’ waste disposal methods: A case study in Turkey

Abstract

Due to rapidly growing technology in the 20th century, the production sector achieved great progress as well as causing a serious environmental problem which we call “waste”. As a major production sector, agriculture plays an important role in Turkey and creates a significant amount of waste in pre-production, production and post-production stages of agricultural outputs. Tomato production, which accounts for 48% of total greenhouse vegetable production in Turkey, is the main focus of this study since it generates a considerable amount of waste. The study uses 1 kg tomato produced in greenhouse conditions during a production season in 2019 as functional unit. Waste types, waste amounts and disposal method variables are taken from the tomato producers in the Antalya region who were selected by stratified random sampling method. With the scenarios created in the LCA program according to certain demographic characteristics of producers, variables are entered into the LCA program and impact assessment results are compared by using recipe methodology. Finally, the relationships between demographic criteria of producers and environmental impact results are discussed.