Cradle-to-grave environmental life cycle assessment of 1 kg of yogurt : a Lebanese case study

Abstract

The Lebanese dairy sector has shown a drastic increase in its production capacity in recent years not only due to the rise in the demand of dairy products but also due to the population growth. The Bekaa, known as Lebanons dairy basin, where extensive dairy farming occurs, accounts for the production of many dairy products such as milk, Labneh, cheese, yogurt ("Laban"), ice cream, and yogurt beverage ("Ayran"). In particular, yogurt accounts for 18.75% of the total dairy products production in Lebanon. However, the dairy sector presents various environmental impacts due to agricultural activities, industrial applications, water/energy consumption, transportation, and packaging disposal. In order to account for these impacts, a sustainable improvement for the dairy sector is needed to identify the environmental threats and try to reduce them as much as possible. One way this can be achieved is through the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Based on the International Organization of Standardization (ISO 14040:44), LCA is a tool used to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of a product, process, or service, throughout its life cycle. In this study, a cradle-to-grave LCA is applied in order to analyze the life cycle impacts resulting from 1 kg of Laban produced in Skaff farm in the Bekaa region and consumed in Lebanon. To model the life cycle inventory and life cycle impact assessment phases, the SimaPro software and the IMPACT 2002+ method are used, respectively. Results show that milk production stage accounts for the highest environmental impacts due to animal feed, whether imported or cultivated. The cultivated crops require fertilizers for growing, which contributes the most to global warming, terrestrial acidification/ nutrification, and terrestrial eutrophication. This is mainly due to the leakages of nitrogenous substance to water, emissions of GHG into the air, and heavy metals in the soil. Other types of seeds are imported from Latin America in order to satisfy the demand in the farm. These imported crops are main contributors to all impact categories except for non-carcinogens, terrestrial and aquatic ecotoxicity, for which a positive impact on the environment is observed due to the use of organic fertilizers for the crops production. Concerning the negative environmental impacts imposed on the rest of categories, it can mainly be explained by two factors: crops production processes, and fuel consumption.