Exploring Interactions Between Fruit and Vegetable Production in a Greenhouse and an Anaerobic Digestion Plant—Environmental Implications

Abstract

Greenhouse fruit and vegetable production uses large amounts of energy and other resources, and finding ways of reducing its impact may increase sustainability. Outputs generated from solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) are suitable for use in greenhouses, which creates a need to investigate the consequences of the possible interactions between them. Connecting the fruit and vegetable production with the resource flows from an SS-AD process, e.g., biogas and digestate, could increase circularity while decreasing the total environmental impact. There are currently no studies where a comprehensive assessment of the material flows between greenhouses and SS-AD are analyzed in combination with evaluation of the environmental impact. In this study, material flow analysis is used to evaluate the effects of adding tomato related waste to the SS-AD, while also using life cycle assessment to study the environmental impact of the system, including production of tomatoes in a greenhouse and the interactions with the SS-AD. The results show that the environmental impact decreases for all evaluated impact categories as compared to a reference greenhouse that used inputs and outputs usually applied in a Swedish context. Using the tomato related waste as a feedstock for SS-AD caused a decrease of biomethane and an increase of carbon dioxide and digestate per ton of treated waste, compared to the digestion of mainly food waste. In conclusion, interactions between a greenhouse and an SS-AD plant can lead to better environmental performance by replacing some of the fertilizer and energy required by the greenhouse.

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“…The methods used in food processing should be environmentally friendly (Alamu and Mooya, 2017). Food systems emit significant greenhouse gases because of the industry's high consumption of fossil fuels (Danevad and Carlos-Pinedo, 2021). In addition, agro-industrial processing generates a large volume of food waste and byproducts (Torres-Le on, 2018).…”

Recent Advances in Bio-Derived Nanomaterials: Green Synthesis of Silica

“…This feedstock is used for the production of sugar and ethanol and the residue from the process is disposed as bagasse. The agricultural waste is disposed of in landfills, the majority of agricultural operations produce waste that is produced in large quantities in many countries and poses serious environmental issues [3].…”

“…Furthermore, during agricultural production, greenhouse gases primarily CH 4 and N 2 O are emitted, with only a trace amount of CO 2 emitted. Reusing agricultural solid waste is regarded as an important waste reduction strategy that meets the requirements of a comprehensive sustainable waste management system; reuse of these wastes can actively contribute to the development of new green technologies, bio-energy generation, and bio-conversion to nanomaterials [3,4].…”