Environmental life cycle assessment of utilizing stem waste for banana production in greenhouses in Turkey

The life cycle environmental impacts of banana production and then its supply to the end user in Turkey were investigated. The low ground water temperatures in Turkey inhibits the yield of banana trees in Turkey and literature suggests that it is possible to double the yield of a single tree by increasing the irrigation water temperature to 27 °C. Hence, three different scenarios were studied. In the first scenario, the business as usual case was considered; in the second scenario heating the irrigation water by using natural gas was studied; and in the third scenario heating the irrigation water by using biogas produced on-site via the anaerobic digestion of banana stem waste was analyzed. The functional unit was chosen as 2 ton of bananas produced over the course of the lifetime of the biogas production system. CCaLC2™ was used as software, and CML2001 methodology was used. A cradle-to-grave approach was employed. The production processes were modelled based on real life data acquired from a real greenhouse in Turkey. Six impacts (global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, photochemical oxidant creation potential, ozone layer depletion potential, and human toxicity potential) were calculated. Results show that four of the six impacts decreased when biogas was used, suggesting that this practice has the potential to reduce the environmental footprint of banana productionThe results were found to be in good agreement with the values reported in the literature. It was concluded that, in order to reduce the environmental footprint of banana production, utilizing the stem waste instead of the conventional practice of burning is essential, and special emphasis should be given to treating or utilizing the bioreactor digestate to further reduce the environmental footprint.