Environmental sustainability analysis of case studies of agriculture residue exploitation

Abstract

The agriculture sector produces significant amounts of organic residues and the choice of the management strategy of these flows affects the environmental sustainability of the sector. The scientific literature is rich with innovative processes for the production of bio-based products (BBP) from agriculture residues, aimed at the implementation of circular economy principles. Based on literature data, the present paper performed a life cycle assessment and assessed the environmental sustainability of five processes for the exploitation of rice and wheat straw, tomato pomace, and orange peel. The analysis identified as significant issues the high energy demand and the use of high impact organic solvent. The comparison of BBP with conventional products showed higher environmental loads for the innovative processes that used organic residues (except for rice straw case). The obtained results do not want to discourage the circular strategy in the agriculture sector, but rather to draw the attention of all stakeholders to the environmental sustainability aspects, focusing on the necessity to decrease the electricity demand and identify ecological agents to use in BBP manufacturing, in agreement with the most recent European policies.