Scholarly record
LIFE CYCLE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF ROMANIAN BEER PRODUCTION
Abstract
One of the most important sectors in the Romanian beverage industry is beer production. In 2015 this sector brought revenues of 533 million Euros to the state budget. The Romanian consume an average of 80 liters per capita so that Romania ranks 7th in the hierarchy of European beer-consuming countries according to the Brewers of Europe. The largest beer consumers from Europe in 2015 were the Czechs with 143 L per capita followed by Germans (106 L per capita) and Austrians (105 L per capita). In our case 97% of beer consumed comes from local production and 70% of natural ingredients used for beer production are from Romania. In this context, the paper aims is to contribute to the analysis of the environmental impacts related with beer industry. The functional unit considered was the quantity produced in L beer/day from a factory in the high season. In this study the boundaries includes the beer manufacturing, packaging, transport, retail, consumption and waste management. An important stage from environmental view in the brewing cycle is beer packaging: the beer is packed mostly in glass bottles, followed by PET bottles, KEG barrels and PET drums of different sizes. The ISO 14040/44 life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied in order to obtain the environmental impacts associated with beer life cycle. The necessary data for the inventory analysis were obtained from a beer manufacturing, databases and other sources. An LCA software (GaBi) was used for modelling and the environmental impacts were determined according to LCA methods like: CML 2001, ReCiPe and UBP 2013. The values for impact categories such as Abiotic Depletion (ADP elements) and ADP fossil, Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Global Warming Potential (GWP), and Human Toxicity Potential (HTP) were obtained. Results showed that PET bottles production contribute with 49.90% to ADP elements followed by glass bottles production (37.5%), while for ADP fossil glass bottles production is the most significant contributor (59%). Also, glass bottles production, followed by waste landfilling and electricity are the main contributors to GWP. The stages included in beer production contributes to AP and EP impacts categories according to the results obtained with CML 2001 and has a significant impact on water resources up to 53% of the total contributions to this impact category included in UBP 2013 method. The beer packaged in PET bottles seems at the first view to be the most favorable option compared with the use of glass bottles, but this changes when glass bottles are reused and PET bottles are recycled, incinerated or landfilled.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
References15
The Brewers of Europe, The Contribution made by Beer to the European Economy, Full Report, pp 272, 2013.
The Brewers of Europe, Beer statistics, 2016 edition, pp 1-36, 2016.
Comanita E. D., Hlihor R. M., Ghinea C., Gavrilescu M., Occurrence of plastic waste in the environment: Ecological and health risks, Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, vol. 15/issue 3, pp 675-685, 2016.
Hospido A., Moreira M. T., Feijoo G., Environmental analysis of beer production, International Journal of Agricultural Resources Governance and Ecology, vol. 4/issue 2, pp 152-162, 2005.
Koroneos C., Roumbas G., Gabari Z., Papagiannidou E., Moussiopoulos N., Life cycle assessment of beer production in Greece, Journal of Clean Production, vol. 13/issue 4, pp 433–439, 2005.
Amienyo D., Azapagic A., Life cycle environmental impacts and costs of beer production and consumption in the UK, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 21/issue 4, pp 492–509, 2016.
Williams A. G., Mekonen S., Environmental performance of traditional beer production in a micro-brewery, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-Food Sector, Schenck R., Huizenga D., (Eds.), San Francisco, USA, pp 1535-1540, 2014.
Cordella M., Tugnoli A., Spadoni G., Santarelli F., Zangrando T., LCA of an Italian lager beer, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 13, pp 133–139, 2008.
Melon R. P., Wergifosse V., Renzoni R., Léonard A., Life cycle assessment of an artisanal Belgian blond beer, Proceedings 2nd LCA Conference, Lille, France, 6-7 November, 2012.
ISO 14040, Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Principles and framework (ISO 14040: 2006), European Standard EN ISO 14040, The International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2006.
Thinkstep, GaBi software database, On line at: https://www.thinkstep.com/software/gabi-lca/gabi-databases, 2017.
Ecoinvent, Ecoinvent database, On line at: http://www.ecoinvent.org/database/database.html, 2017.
Banu C., Treaty of food industry, Food technologies, Asab Ed., Bucharest, Romania, 2009.
Parliament of Romania, Law no. 104 of 15 June 2011 on ambient air quality (in Romanian), 2011.
GD, Government Decision (GD) No. 188 of February 28, 2002 for the approval of norms regarding the discharge conditions in the aquatic environment of waste waters, updated in 2007.
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.
