Articles

Using life cycle assessment to determine the environmental interest of the treatment of organic effluents by anaerobic digestion with regard to territorial constraints

Abstract

The management of organic waste is a territorial issue and especially in Brittany because of the existence of nitrogen excess inducing a significant deterioration of surface water used for drinking water production and a green algae bloom on the coast under certain conditions. Collective management of organic waste by anaerobic digestion allowing nitrogen export represents a possible way to locally reduce the nitrogen pollution. In order to provide evidence of the environmental performance of this alternative, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was carried out for three scenarios on the management of livestock effluent and food industry waste for a watershed in Brittany: a reference scenario representing current practice and two alternative scenarios with a post-treatment of the composting allowing the use of the biogas produced from anaerobic digestion either by a local industry or for an evapo-concentration process. Only three relevant environmental impact categories were assessed: climate change, acidification and eutrophication. The scenario with composting highlights the interest of biogas recovery. The scenario with evapo-concentration is the least impacting but leads to a potential impact transfer for eutrophication, due to the export of a significant amount of nitrogen out of the studied watershed. LCA is insightful for collective thinking but also opens the debate on these complex territories that watersheds are: should we favour a local collaboration to move towards industrial ecology and probably facilitated social acceptance, or encourage the reduction of the nitrogen pressure into a watershed in litigation?

Authors


L. AISSANI

Country : France


A. COLLET

Country : France


F. BÉLINE

Country : France

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