Author(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe, Renato Torres García, Gustavo Larrea Gallegos, Isabel Quispe Trinidad, Ramzy Kahhat Abedrabbo y otros
(Español) The environmental sustainability of the cultivation of grapes for the production of alcoholic beverages has been extensively analyzed in the literature from a Life Cycle Assessment perspective, although certain impact categories have been repeatedly neglected despite their importance, such as toxic emissions or the depletion of freshwater resources. Hence, the current study provides a detailed assessment of water footprint-related impact categories, including toxicity, for the cultivation of grapes for pisco production, an alcoholic beverage produced in coastal Peru in hyper-arid areas that suffer high levels of water scarcity. Characterization factors at a sub-watershed level were used to calculate water consumption impact assessment of grape production using the AWARE method. Site-specific toxic emissions were modelled using the PestLCI model, considering primary climate and soil data. The USEtox assessment method was then used to compute freshwater eco-toxicity with these data. Results demonstrate the high water footprint of irrigating vineyards in coastal Peru, especially considering the inefficient flooding irrigation process. In terms of water consumption, despite the high variability shown between sub-watersheds, the shift to other irrigation technologies must be analyzed with care due to the high competition for water existing in the area. Eutrophication potential showed particularly high values compared to the literature, whereas freshwater eco-toxicity impacts were relatively low due to the high volatilization of pesticides to air. Nevertheless, the lack of an adequate wastewater management system implies that the estimated potential toxic and eutrophying emissions may constitute a further environmental threat to water bodies.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
(Español) Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool to support environmental informed decisions among product and process alternatives. LCA results reflect the process stage contributions to several environmental impacts, which should be made mutually comparable to help in the decision-making process. Aggregated environmental indexes enable the translation of this set of metrics into a one final score, by defining the attached weights to impacts. Weighting values reflect the corresponding relevance assigned to each environmental impact. Current weighing schemes are based on pre-articulation of preferences, without considering the specific features of the system under study. This paper presents a methodology that combines LCA methodology and linear programming optimisation to determine the environmental improvement actions that conduct to a more sustainable production. LCA was applied using the environmental sustainability assessment methodology to obtain two main indexes: natural resources (NR) and environmental burdens (EB). Normalised indexes were optimised to determine the optimal joint of weighting factors that lead to an optimised global Environmental Sustainability Index. The proposed methodology was applied to a food sector, in particular, to the anchovy canning industry in Cantabria Region (Northern Spain). By maximising the objective function composed of NR and EB variables, it is possible to find the optimal joint of weights that identify the best environmental sustainable options. This study proves that LCA can be applied in combination with linear programing tools as a part of the decision-making process in the development of more sustainable processes and products.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
(Español) Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to assess the environmental impacts associated with the fishing operations related to European anchovy fishing in Cantabria (northern Spain) under a life cycle approach. Methods: The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied for this case study including construction, maintenance, use, and end of life of the vessels. The functional unit used was 1 kg of landed round anchovy at port. Inventory data were collected for the main inputs and outputs of 32 vessels, representing a majority of vessels in the fleet. Results and discussion: Results indicated, in a similar line to what is reported in the literature, that the production, transportation, and use of diesel were the main environmental hot spots in conventional impact categories. Moreover, in this case, the production and transportation of seine nets was also relevant. Impacts linked to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions suggest that emissions were in the upper range for fishing species captured with seine nets and the value of global warming potential (GWP) was 1.44 kg CO2 eq per functional unit. The ecotoxicity impacts were mainly due to the emissions of antifouling substances to the ocean. Regarding fishery-specific categories, many were discarded given the lack of detailed stock assessments for this fishery. Hence, only the biotic resource use category was computed, demonstrating that the ecosystems’ effort to sustain the fishery is relatively low. Conclusions: The use of the LCA methodology allowed identifying the main environmental hot spots of the purse seining fleet targeting European anchovy in Cantabria. Individualized results per port or per vessel suggested that there are significant differences in GHG emissions between groups. In addition, fuel use is high when compared to similar fisheries. Therefore, research needs to be undertaken to identify why fuel use is so high, particularly if it is related to biomass and fisheries management or if skipper decisions could play a role.
Open linkAuthor(s): Gustavo Larrea Gallegos, Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
(Español) Waste management in cities has proved to be a complex task for policy-makers who seek cost reductions when taking decisions. However, on many occasions substantial environmental gain can be attained through waste management optimization. In this particular study, the main objective was to combine operational research techniques with Life Cycle Assessment to locate collection sites for general and recyclable residues and create an effective collection-route system for compactor trucks to attain a reduction in environmental impacts. The case study selected was the district of Comas, one of the most populated districts in the city of Lima, a city that has experienced several episodes of poor waste collection management in recent years. For the location of the collection sites a mathematical optimization model was proposed to decide where to locate them, as well as the number of containers required at each site, considering that general and recyclable residues would not be collected at the same site due to the restricted space available. For the creation of collection routes, a heuristic approach based on the Vehicle Routing Problem was constructed, taking into account the available working time of each collection truck to assign them collection routes and minimize the number of compactor trucks. These results, when combined with LCA, focused mainly on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution impact categories and the depletion of abiotic resources. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was developed by varying three different parameters with respect to the proposed baseline scenario, comparing the several impact categories. Computed results show that implementing a container collection system reduces the number of compactor trucks required by up to 50% as compared to the current door-to-door collection system. Moreover, GHG emissions where reduced by almost 14% with the proposal, mostly due to a 41% reduction in distance traveled. Reductions in terms of particulate matter formation and photochemical oxidant formation were even more significant, especially considering that air pollution is an important health hazard in the district analyzed, whereas most scenarios showed a slight increase in resource depletion due to the inclusion of container infrastructure in the system.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
(Español) Purpose: Life cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) have been combined in numerous occasions in order to identify the environmental efficiency of multiple units. In many cases, important differences in environmental performance have been identified among the units, referred to as decision-making units (DMUs). However, most studies have been limited to 1 year of assessment, preventing the study from identifying if efficiency values were linked to a specific trend of each DMU through time or to random annual changes. Therefore, the current study delves into the temporal variations in efficiency using DEA. Materials and methods: A DEA window analysis is applied to a set of wastewater treatment plants for a 4-year interval between 2009 and 2012 with the aim of understanding the annual behaviour of WWTPs in terms of environmental sustainability. A set of 47 WWTPs located in different regions of Spain were analysed using a window of 4 years of operation, to account not only for the differences in eco-efficiency between plants but also for changes due to the numerous temporal factors that may affect individual plants. Results: Results extracted from the assessment suggested that for the vast majority of the facilities, the efficiency standards tended to remain constant through time. Statistical tests (i.e. ANOVA and Friedman’s test) confirmed there were no significant differences between years in the different group sizes. This finding, confirmed that the use of the slacks-based measure of efficiency (SBM) model for one single year of operation is a good proxy for the evaluation of the environmental efficiency of these systems. In addition, the scale factor was confirmed as a significant driving force regarding environmental efficiency and significant differences in efficiency values were identified between large and medium WWTPS, on the one hand, and smaller plants, on the other. Conclusions: Significant differences were detected among plants with different legislation thresholds for their effluent withdrawal. WWTP discharging to nonsensitive water bodies appeared to be able to repeatedly attain efficiency values near the benchmark, whereas facilities with stricter thresholds (i.e. sensitive water bodies) struggled to achieve those values, especially in the case of the smaller plants.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ramzy Kahhat Abedrabbo y otros
(Español) International trade of discarded electronics (e-waste) has become a matter of concern over the last decade because of the actual and potential harms associated with their hazardous materials. An initiative under the aegis of the UN called the Best-of-Two-Worlds (Bo2W) philosophy is one solution to the e-waste problem that has gained some traction. Our dual purpose is to examine the ethical grounds of Bo2W and to propose an alternative program for action. We call this alternative ethical electronics repair, reuse, repurposing, and recycling (EER4). To explore the ethical grounds of Bo2W and to articulate EER4 as an alternative, we draw on notions of ethics, technology, and organization developed in science and technology studies (STS) and diverse economies literatures while empirically we explore a mixed methods case study of a small recycling firm in northern Mexico. Conceptually and empirically, our analysis points to a need for a richer imagination of the possibilities for economic action oriented toward managing discarded electronics. More broadly, our findings may act as a reminder that the space between use and discard proliferates the literal and figurative resources for enriching the imagination and enactment of diverse economic possibilities via the action of repair, reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe, Ana Lucía Cáceres Cebrecos, Renato Torres García, Isabel Quispe Trinidad, Ramzy Kahhat Abedrabbo
(Español) The production of pisco is concentrated along the southern hyper-arid coast in five producing regions. Despite efforts to regulate its production, the Denomination of Origin still lacks a best practices guideline for producers to follow in terms of choosing technologies and operations that can help towards cleaner production. Hence, the present study aims at analyzing a selected number of pisco wineries using Life Cycle Assessment to compute the environmental impacts of this product in order to identify the systems' hotspots and propose improvement actions. A total of six wineries were assessed, including the viticulture, vinification/distillation and bottling stages. Results, which included 13 impact categories and were reported for a conventional 500 mL pisco bottle, showed that environmental impacts vary substantially depending on the winery assessed. Global warning potential (GWP) results ranged from 1.7 kg CO2eq to 4.0 kg CO2eq. Viticulture operations presented highest environmental burdens in most categories, pushed by the production and on-site emissions of fertilizers in terms of eutrophication, GWP or fossil depletion and by irrigation in the case of water depletion. The bottling stage was also relevant due to the high impacts of glass production, whereas vinification/distillation processes at the winery were dependent on the energy carrier for the distillation. The type of pisco produced, crop maturity or the degree of mechanization triggered the main environmental impact variations that were identified among wineries.
Open linkAuthor(s): Ian Vázquez Rowe, Gustavo Larrea Gallegos y otros
(Español) Purpose: The main goal of this study is to provide a thorough environmental sustainability analysis of the construction, traffic, and maintenance of a 45.6-km section of the ‘Manu Road’, an unpaved tropical road that is currently being built in the vicinity of Manu National Park, in the region of Madre de Dios, Peru. Methods: Life cycle assessment (LCA) using a set of 18 different impact categories was selected to conduct the environmental analysis. Modelling of machinery and vehicle emissions, as well as dust emissions, was performed to account for site-specific characteristics in terms of road construction and traffic. Similarly, direct land use changes were modelled with a particular emphasis on the decay of deforested biomass during construction. A set of different scenarios for the production system were considered to account for uncertainty regarding vehicle transit, amount of deforested biomass, and emission standards. Results and discussion: Construction, maintenance, and traffic of the Manu Road varied considerably depending on methodological assumptions. Deforestation due to direct land use changes appears to be the main environmental hotspot in terms of climate change, whereas in the remaining impact categories, traffic was the main carrier of environmental burdens. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first LCA that focuses on the construction, maintenance, and traffic in a tropical rainforest environment. Despite the low requirements in terms of materials and technology to build this road, its derived environmental impacts are relevant in terms of climate change and particulate matter formation due to deforestation and dust emissions, respectively. Unpaved roads represent a relevant proportion of the entire road network worldwide, especially in developing tropical countries, playing a crucial role in the transportation of raw materials. Furthermore, road infrastructure is expected to expand explosively in the decades to come. Therefore, we suggest that LCA studies can and should improve the planning of road infrastructure in terms of life cycle inventories.
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