Life cycle assessment of the production process of "Beet Sugar" (1 kg packaging)

Abstract

This study is made by the collaboration among ENEA, University of Bologna and sugar-mill CO.PRO.B. in Minerbio (Bologna).

The purposes for this study is the assessment of environmental impacts for the production process of "Beet Sugar" (1 kg packaging). This Life Cycle Assessment is calculated by Dutch software "SimaPro 5.0", using three weighting methods, namely "Eco-Indicator 99"(Dutch method), "EPS 2000"(Swedish method) and "Edip 96" (Danish method). In particular, "Eco-indicator 99" is modified in "Eco-indicator 99 (E)CWE" to consider costs and the consumption of resources as water and energy, EPS 2000 is modified in EPS 2000 CWCO2 to consider the consumption of water, the emission of carbon dioxide and costs, Edip 96 is modified in Edip 96 (dust) to consider dust.

From the LCA analisys of sugar production has emerged that, according to the Eco-Indicator method the damage is equal to 0,731 Pt, according to the EPS 2000 method the damage is equal to 26,4 Pt., at last according to the Edip 96 method the damage is equal to -0,113 Pt.

This study also includes a sensitivity analysis that compares :
1) COPROB sugar production and IVAM (a database included in "Sima Pro 5.0") sugar production ;
2) COPROB sugar beet production and Ecoinvent (a Swiss database) sugar beet production.