Abstract
The paper aims to analyse the life cycle of sheep milk cheese production, to investigate supply chain of cheese and to suggest improvements for minimizing the environmental impacts associated with this agri-food product. The functional unit chosen was 1 kg of sheep milk cheese. Modelling of the production process was performed based on real data obtained from a cheese production company in Romania. Two methods (CML and ReCiPe), included in GaBi software, were used for the environmental impact assessment. The following impacts: abiotic depletion potential elements, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, global warming potential, human toxicity potential (included in CML method) and climate change, fossil depletion, freshwater eutrophication, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidant formation, terrestrial acidification (included in ReCiPe method), were calculated. Results highlighted that energy production and diesel consumption are the main activities which contribute to the environmental impacts associated with cheese product. Emissions from diesel production and consumption contribute to global warming potential with 11.70% and 82.36%, respectively. Wastewater treatment mainly contributes to freshwater eutrophication with 43.58%, followed by raw milk production (37.52%), diesel production (12.34%) and others. The results of this study showed that the values for most impact categories decrease when the energy is obtained by renewable sources compared to the energy produced by conventional procedures. It was concluded that, in order to reduce the environmental impacts associated with sheep cheese production, the energy used in the process needs to be more environmentally friendly.
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The datasets supporting the conclusions of this article are included in the article. Besides, the datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This work was funded by Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization within Program 1 Development of national research and development system, Subprogram 1.2-Institutional Performance-RDI excellence funding projects, under contract no. 10PFE/2021.
Funding
This work was funded by Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization within Program 1 Development of national research and development system, Subprogram 1.2-Institutional Performance-RDI excellence funding projects, under contract no. 10PFE/2021.
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CG and AL contributed with data collection and writing, specifically writing the initial version. CG and AL were the contributors with the review and editing of the manuscript. CG analysed and interpreted the data used in the current study. CG was a major contributor in writing the manuscript, specifically writing the initial version and review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ghinea, C., Leahu, A. Life cycle assessment of sheep cheese production in a small dairy factory from Romanian rural area. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 6986–7004 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22644-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22644-2