The future of Swedish food waste: An environmental assessment of existing and prospective valorization techniques
Journal article, 2018

In Sweden, the current dominant valorization of food waste is the production of biogas. However, as current production has low profitability, other options are sought to find more valuable uses of food waste, e.g. as the feedstock for bio-based chemicals. One example is the use of food waste in the production of bio-based succinic acid. In this paper, a LCA study is presented in order to highlight whether biogas production or the production of succinic acid has the lowest environmental impact as valorization option for mixed food waste, and if mixed food waste could be an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. The LCA study shows that the environmental results depend on the perspective. From a valorization perspective, food waste has the lowest environmental impact the biogas production. From a feedstock perspective, mixed food waste is an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. Although many uncertainties exist because production processes are still being developed, it can be concluded that mixed food waste seems to be a promising feedstock for bio-based chemicals from an environmental point of view, and is of interest to be included in future assessments of bio-based chemicals for the emerging bio-economy.

Biogas

Bio-based economy

Food waste

LCA

Succinic acid

Author

Birgit Brunklaus

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Emma Rex

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Erica Carlsson

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Johanna Berlin

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Journal of Cleaner Production

0959-6526 (ISSN)

Vol. 202 1-10

Subject Categories

Renewable Bioenergy Research

Other Environmental Engineering

Environmental Management

DOI

10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.240

More information

Latest update

7/12/2022