A Simple Model to Include Human Excretion in Life Cycle Assessment of Food Products Ivan Mu noz, Llorenc Mil` a i Canals, and Roland Clift Keywords: carbon cycle feces industrial ecology nutrients cycle urine wastewater Summary Emissions derived from human digestion of food and subse- quent excretion are very relevant from a life cycle perspective, and yet they are often omitted from food life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. This article offers a simple model to allocate and include these emissions in LCAs of specic foodstuffs. The model requires basic food composition values and calcu- lates the mass and energy balance for carbon, water, nutrients (mainly nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P]), and other inorganic substances through different excretion paths: breathing, feces, and urine. In addition to direct excretion, the model also allo- cates some auxiliary materials and energy related to toilet use, such as ushing and washing and drying hands. Wastewater composition is also an output of the model, enabling water treatment to be modeled in LCA studies. The sensitivity of the model to food composition is illustrated with different food products, and the relative importance of excretion in a products life cycle is shown with an example of broccoli. The results show that this model is sensitive to food composition and thus useful for assessing the environmental consequences of shifts in diet. From a life cycle perspective, the results show that postconsumption nutrient emissions may dominate the impacts on eutrophication potential, and they illustrate how the carbon cycle is closed with the human emissions after food preparation and consumption. Address correspondence to: Llorenc Mil` a i Canals SEAC, Unilever Colworth Colworth House, Sharnbrook Bedfordshire MK44 1LQ, United Kingdom Llorenc.Mila-i-Canals@unilever.com c 2008 by Yale University DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2008.00060.x Volume 12, Number 4 www. blackwellpublishing. com/jie Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy 521 FORUM Introduction Food is a basic human need, recognized as one of our most resource-demanding and pollut- ing daily activities when the complete life cy- cle of food is considered. Food production causes many environmental impacts through its sup- ply chain, which includes agricultural produc- tion, storage, several transport steps, processing, cooking and consumption, and waste disposal. Several studies have identied food as one of the main contributors to the environmental im- pact of private consumption at both the na- tional and the international level (Nijdam et al. 2005; Tukker et al. 2006). It is not surprising, then, that life cycle assessment (LCA) studies are increasingly directed at food to nd ways to make its production and consumption patterns sustainable. LCA has been applied to many different food products, including basic carbohydrate foods, fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat, sh, and alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks, among others (Foster et al. 2006). Although some prac- titioners have conducted full LCAs for partic- ular products or product groups (Andersson and Ohlsson 1998; Jungbluth et al. 2000; Ziegler et al. 2003), many studies tend to focus on a partic- ular stage of the products life cycle, such as agriculture (Ant on et al. 2004; Mil` a i Canals et al. 2006), industrial processing (Sonesson, Mattsson, et al. 2005), transport (Mil` a i Canals et al. 2007; Sim et al. 2007), retailing (Carlson and Sonesson 2000), industrial processing and packaging (Hospido et al. 2006), home storage and processing (Sonesson et al. 2003; Sonesson, Anteson, et al. 2005; Sonesson, Mattsson, et al. 2005), and waste management (Sonesson et al. 2004; Lundie and Peters 2005). Human digestion and excretion remains the least studied life cycle stage of food products; so far, only nutrients in food have been included. In their case study onseafood, Ziegler and colleagues (2003) included nutrients in the food and their fate throughsewage treatment. Sonessonand col- leagues (2004) studied the importance of post- consumption waste treatment in the life cycle of food products, proposing a systematic procedure for modeling the nutrients balance. Nonethe- less, besides nutrients, published studies have not covered human metabolism and excretion as a whole. The biochemical transformations undergone by food in the human body give rise to differ- ent pollutants released to air and water, which should be included within the system boundaries of a complete food LCA, similar to the way food waste is treated whenit is landlled or composted. Therefore, why has human excretion been sys- tematically omitted by LCA practitioners up to date? We can envisage at least three reasons for this: 1. It is not necessary in case studies compar- ing similar products, because the environ- mental burdens would also be similar. 2. LCA is a tool intended to support decision making at many levels in the food chain; it can guide decisions about producing or consuming more or less organic food, fresh or frozen products, and so forth, but human metabolism is a constraint, something we can hardly inuence and therefore must accept as a limitation. In particular, LCA has been traditionally used mostly for sus- tainable production, and hence the focus has been on cradle-to-gate studies. 3. There are no available models to calculate the environmental burdens of this stage as a function of the type of food; that is, there is no allocation procedure analogous to those developed for other multi-input pro- cesses, such as solid waste and wastewater treatment (Doka and Hischier 2005). Even though Sonesson and colleagues (2004) suggest some hints for calculating post- consumption emissions from food, to our knowledge, these have not been used in any published food LCA studies. As pointed out by Andersson (2000) and Sonesson and colleagues (2004), the relevance of including human excretion depends on the goal of the study. Digestion and excretion are clearly relevant when the aim is to close the bal- ance of materials in the life cycle or to com- pare the environmental effects of different diets (Jungbluth et al. 2000; Alfredsson 2002; Kytzia et al. 2004) or ways to provide food (Sonesson, Mattsson, et al. 2005) due to the dependence of excretionemissions onfood composition. Human 522 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM excretion should also be included in attributional food LCA studies, which aim to identify the life cycle hot spots. 1 In this work, we address this methodologi- cal gap by providing a simple model to calcu- late product-related life cycle inventories of hu- man excretion. The title of this article refers to the spherical cow metaphor, where a theoretical physicist started a calculation on a dairys pro- duction with Consider a spherical cow. . .. This metaphor is often used to refer to simplied sci- entic models of reality, which help understand more complex problems. The article sets out the model fundamentals, tests the model with differ- ent food types, and positions it in the context of the whole life cycle of a particular product, broc- coli. The nal section discusses the results and highlights the main conclusions of the article. Model Description The model has been designed as a MS Ex- cel spreadsheet, a comprehensive description of which is offered by Mu noz and colleagues (2007). Figure 1 Modeled system. COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological oxygen demand. General Structure and System Boundaries The model can be divided in two main parts: The rst addresses the global balance of materials and energy in the human body as a consequence of ingestion of food with a specic composition, whereas the second part concerns the auxiliary materials and energy associated with toilet use. Figure 1 shows a ow diagram of the system mod- eled and its boundaries. It is worth noting that the only emissions to nature calculated by this model are to air, mainly from respiration, whereas the wastewater containing human excrement and toilet paper is considered as an output to the technosphere. It is assumed that toilets discharge wastewater to a sewer connected to a wastewater treatment plant. This means that, to determine the nal emis- sions to the environment, an additional model for wastewater treatment must be used. Several models are available (Dalemo 1997; Jimenez- Gonzalez et al. 2001; Doka 2003) to calculate inventories of wastewater treatment for user- dened wastewaters. If a scenario with no sewage treatment is considered, the emissions quantied Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 523 FORUM by the human excretion model must be taken as the nal mass of pollutants released to the aquatic environment. Food Composition Any kind of food, including plain water, can be assessed by the model, as long as its compo- sition is known. The input parameters to be de- ned, as g/100 g on a fresh weight basis, are the following: water content; protein content; fat content, including all lipids (saturated and nonsaturated fatty acids, cholesterol, etc.); carbohydrate content, including all sugars and starch; Fiber content, including lignin, pectin, and cellulose; alcohol; organic acids not covered by any of the above categories, such as acetic acid or lac- tic acid; inorganic elements, such as phosphorus, sodium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, iron, and heavy metals. Raw and cooked food composition can be found in handbooks such as that published by the UK Food Standards Agency (2002). It is im- portant to consider the composition of the food as it is ingested, because cooked or boiled food can have a very different composition as compared to raw food. As an example, broccoli loses 30% of Figure 2 Overview of the fate of food constituents in the human body as considered in the model. its protein and 39% of its carbohydrate content when boiled (Food Standards Agency 2002). Inorganic constituents must also be included, especially if they represent a signicant part of the food. The occurrence of toxic organic compounds, such as pesticide residues, is not taken into account because the added complex- ity that would be introduced by their modeling in the human body is out of the scope of this ar- ticle. In fact, pesticides (and other substances) metabolites are not even considered in sophisti- cated pesticide fate models in LCA. Only heavy metals are included in the food composition, but it is important to bear in mind that the purpose of this model is to obtain a life cycle inventory; impacts on human toxicity of exposure to heavy metals in food are not assessed. Human Metabolism Modeling One of the basic assumptions of the model is that a steady-state person is considered. This means that all material entering the body as food is excreted, including proteins and fat. No accu- mulation of fat or synthesis of additional proteins is considered; this is in accordance with the anal- ysis of Sonesson and colleagues (2004). Food is entirely converted to excretion products and ex- pelled fromthe body inone of the following ows: breath, urine, feces, and skin/sweat. Figure 2 shows an overview of the transforma- tions and fate of food entering the human body according to this model. Food constituents are divided into four categories: water, degradable material, nondegradable material, and inorgan- ics. The model considers as degradable organic 524 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM Table 1 Elemental composition of organic constituents in food Elemental composition (kg/kg) Food constituents C H O N S Comments Protein 0.47 0.07 0.29 0.15 0.02 Average C, H, N, O, and S content in each of the 20 amino acids: alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, valine Fat 0.77 0.12 0.12 0.00 0.00 Based only on triglycerides, which constitute more than 90% of total fat intake in western diets (Boron and Boulpaep 2003). As C, H, and O content in two triglycerides used as models: triglyceride of palmitic acid, oleic acid, alpha-linoleic acid, and triglyceride of palmitic acid, palmitic acid, palmitoleic acid. Carbohydrate 0.42 0.06 0.52 0.00 0.00 Average obtained by the sum of C, H, and O content of the following carbohydrates: fructose, sucrose, maltose, lactose, and starch Alcohol 0.52 0.13 0.35 0.00 0.00 Based on the empirical formula of ethanol, C 2 H 5 OH Organic acids 0.40 0.07 0.53 0.00 0.00 Based on the empirical formula of acetic acid, CH 3 COOH. The weight fractions are equally valid for lactic acid, C 3 H 6 O 3 , and for any carbohydrate with formula (CH 2 O) n Fiber 0.44 0.06 0.49 0.00 0.00 Dietary ber includes lignins, pectins, and cellulose (Boron and Boulpaep 2003). The composition of ber is based on the empirical formula of cellulose (C 6 H 10 O 5 ) n Note: C = carbon; H = hydrogen; O = oxygen; N = nitrogen; S = sulfur. materials all the organic constituents listed in the section on food composition above, with the exception of ber (nondegradable organic mat- ter in gure 2). For carbohydrates, particularly starch, the availability for digestion seems to be lower in processed and reheated food (Clifford 2007); this might introduce differences between, for example, ready-meal and home-prepared ver- sions of the same foodstuffs. This has not been taken into account in the model, however: All organic degradable materials are assumed to be fully available for digestion. Inorganics and water are not subject to any chemical transformation; the latter is partitioned between air and wastewater, whereas the for- mer are assumed to report entirely to wastewa- ter. The main transformation described by the model is that undergone by degradable organic material as a result of human digestion. To model this transformation, a general biochem- ical reaction has been dened, which, in turn, requires the chemical composition of the reac- tants to be dened. Table 1 summarizes the av- erage elemental composition of the food con- stituents and how they have been estimated. The data in table 1, with the exclusion of ber, are used along with food composition to estimate a weighted empirical formula for digestible organic matter. Nondegradable material is basically excreted via feces without taking part in any human metabolic process. An allowance has been made for ber, however, as well as for degradable or- ganic matter, to be converted to methane by the colon bacterial ora. This is further described in the next section. Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 525 FORUM The overall biochemical reaction proposed for degradable organic matter is shown in equation 1. This equation implies that organic degradable matter is converted, by cell respiration, to car- bon dioxide and water, whereas some carbon is lost in urea (CH 4 ON 2 ) and feces (C 2 H 4 O). To simplify the calculations, it is assumed that all nitrogen from protein degradation ends up in urea, so that feces contain only carbon, hydro- gen, and oxygen, in molar proportions similar to those in activated sludge in wastewater treatment plants. All sulphur ends up as sulphate, reported as H 2 SO 4 . Some sulphur will actually be ex- creted via growth of hair and nails, but this has been omitted from the model in the interest of simplicity. C a H b O c N d S e + AO 2 B CO 2 +C H 2 O + D CH 4 ON 2 + E H 2 SO 4 + F C 2 H 4 O (1) where E = e (2) D = d/2 (3) F = 0.055a (4) B = a D F (5) C = (b 4D 2E 4F)/2 (6) A= (C + D +4E +2F +2B c)/2 (7) For equation 1 to be solved, the share of car- bon incorporated in either carbon dioxide (B) or feces (F) has to be dened. We have done this by calculating a balance for degradable carbon in the human body, with the following assumptions: Alveolar volume in respiratory system is 350 milliliters (mL), 2 of which 5% is car- bon dioxide (Boron and Boulpaep 2003). Breathing rate is taken as the average of 12/min (Boron and Boulpaep, 2003) and 20/min (Marieb 1995). This leads to an average output of 195 grams car- bon/person/day as carbon dioxide exhaled. Urine production is 1.5 L/day (Boron and Boulpaep 2003), with a dry weight of 5% (Mara 2003) and a carbon content 14% in dry weight (Feachem et al. 1983). The car- bon loss in urine follows as 11 g/person/day. Feces production is around 0.15 kilogram (kg) 3 per day, with a dry matter content of 25% and a carbon content of 50% in the dry matter (Feachem et al. 1983). This gives 19 g C, fromwhichthe contributionof nondegradable ber must be excluded. Av- erage intake of ber is 15 g/person/day, with a carbon content of 44% (table 1). If we assume that ber is excreted in feces with- out any transformation, the contribution of ber to carbon in feces is 7 g. Therefore, the output of degradable carbon via feces is 19 7 = 12 g C/person/day. These calculations lead to a loss of degradable carbon via feces of 5.5% (equation 4). It is worth noting that a similar amount is lost via urine, around 90% of the amount of carbon effectively used by cell respirationand transformed to carbon dioxide. This balance has omitted several carbon ows that were estimated and found to be negli- gible: carbon dioxide and methane via intestinal gas, and methane expelled via lungs; altogether, these account for less than 0.1% of the carbon output. The fate of each of the nal products obtained in equation 1 is dened in the model as follows: Carbon dioxide is entirely emitted to atmo- sphere via the lungs. Urea, sulphate, and feces are expelled as liquid and solid excreta: urea dissolved in urine, and feces as solid, whereas sulphate seems to be almost entirely excreted in urine (Florin et al. 1991). Water will be emitted both as a liquid and as a gas. To determine the share of each, we have used the water balance suggested by Boron and Boulpaep (2003), according to which 64% of the water output corre- sponds to the liquid phase (60% by urine and 4% by feces), whereas the remaining 36% corresponds to the air phase (22% by skin/sweat and 14% by breathing). In ad- dition to the water produced by cell respi- ration, the model must also determine the fate of water originally present in food, usu- ally a much larger quantity. The fate factors 526 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM already above also apply to the water in food. Fiber is the only category of organic con- stituents in food not affected by the biochemical transformation in equation 1. Fiber is assumed to be emitted to wastewater via feces with no chem- ical transformation except methane production, as described below. Methane Emissions Besides cell respiration, the only additional chemical transformationconsidered by the model is the formation of methane by colonic bacteria. In carbon terms, the amounts may seem negligi- ble (see above), but from a greenhouse gas per- spective they may not be. For this reason, an at- tempt has been made to estimate the amount of methane emitted by the human body due to the activity of anaerobic bacteria in the intestine. Humancells have no metabolic pathway capa- ble of producing or metabolizing methane. There- fore, the model attributes all methane production to the action of intestinal bacteria and assumes that all methane is excreted in intestinal gas or exhaled breath (Bond et al. 1971). Methane pro- duction varies widely among individual humans: Some subjects, approximately one third of the population, continually produce large quantities of this gas, whereas others consistently excrete lit- tle or no methane at all. This appears to be related to the presence or absence of methane-producing ora: Familial (not necessarily genetic) factors play an important role in determining whether a subject produces methane (Levitt and Bond 1980). 4 According to Bond and colleagues (1971), the average methane excretion rate of methane pro- ducers is 0.33 mL/min and 0.45 mL/min via lungs and intestine gas, respectively. If a pressure of 1 atmosphere (atm) 5 and a body temperature of 310 kelvin (K) 6 are considered, this suggests that a methane producer emits 0.52 g C in CH 4 per day, or 0.69 g CH 4 per day. If this is corrected to take into account that only 33% of the popula- tion are considered to be signicant methane pro- ducers, we obtainanaverage emissionof 0.17 g C- CH 4 per person per day, or 0.23 g CH 4 per person per day. This implies that around 0.08% of the total carbon emitted by the human population is in the form of methane. Degradable organic material contributes to methane production, but so does dietary ber. Tomlin and colleagues (1991) found that a ber- rich diet implies an increase in intestinal gas pro- duction as compared to a ber-free diet. Bond and colleagues (1971), however, found that methane production is insensitive to changes in nonab- sorbable carbon intake, whereas the production of other gases, in particular hydrogen, is clearly enhanced by ber intake. In view of this uncer- tainty, the model allocates methane emissions to all carbohydrates present in the food ingested on the basis of carbon content, regardless of whether they are digestible. Metabolic Energy Balance With regard to the energy balance of the over- all process, the chemical energy stored in all the inputs and outputs to and from the human body is calculated, on the basis of their heating values. The model uses the upper heating value, because most water is excreted as the liquid, whereas even the vapor emissions (exhaling and perspiration) actually pass through the skin and lung surfaces as liquid. Upper heating values are calculated for food, methane, urea, and feces derived from both degradable and nondegradable organic material (ber). All the remaining materials (oxygen, wa- ter, carbon dioxide, sulphate, and phosphorus) are assigned a null energy content. The heat content calculation is based on elemental com- positions according to the formula proposed by Michel (1938): Upper Heating Value (MJ/kg) = 9.8324O +124.265H +34.016C +19.079S +6.276N (8) where C, H, O, N, and S are the mass fractions of eachelement. The gures obtained withequation 8 for the energy input in ber-rich food will be higher than those reported in food labels, which normally exclude the caloric value of ber be- cause it is nonabsorbable and not actually di- gested. The difference between the energy input and output, each calculated with equation 8, is the Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 527 FORUM fraction of energy effectively used by the cells in their metabolic processes. The model assumes this energy to be emitted eventually to the envi- ronment as heat. Allocation of Technosphere Processes Using the toilet to evacuate liquid and solid excretion products implies, directly or indirectly, the use of ancillary materials and energy. The model allocates these processes to food intake on the basis of mass of excretion products. The following basic assumptions are made: Every time the toilet is used, it is ushed. After eachtoilet use, hands are washed with soap and water at ambient temperature. At home toilets, hands are dried by means of a towel, whereas at workplace toilets, hands are dried by means of a hot air blower. Towel production is excluded because of the long service life of the towel, but wash- ing and drying at home are included. Transport of ancillary materials (soap, de- tergent, toilet paper) is not included. A set of parameters have been dened and givendefault values intended to be representative of UK conditions (table 2). The user can modify the parameter values to make them representa- tive of other regions or scenarios. The different environmental burdens can be calculated per person per day with the data in table 2. Next, these gures are divided by the average daily solid plus liquid excreta production by an average person, which is taken as 1.65 kg, made up of 1.5 kg (i.e., 1.5 L) urine and 0.15 kg feces. The allocation to food intake on the basis of food excreta is nally carried out by means of equation 9: Toilet related burden kg food intake = Toilet related burden kg solid and liquid excreta
kg solid and liquid excreta
kg food intake (9) Model Output The output of the human excretion model consists of a disaggregated inventory table includ- ing inputs from nature (oxygen), inputs from the technosphere (food itself and those related to toi- let use), outputs to nature (emissions to air from respiration and digestion), and outputs to the technosphere (wastewater). The pollutionload of the resulting wastewater is expressed in the model by the parameters total organic carbon (TOC), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxy- gen demand (COD), N-total, P-total, and other inorganic elements. Asmall amount of these pol- lutants arises from toilet use (hands washing with soap, towel washing, etc.), but the highest share is related to human excreta; they are calculated by the model as follows: TOC is determined from the carbon con- tent in the solid and liquid excretion prod- ucts, namely ber, and products of equa- tion 1: feces and urea. COD and BOD are estimated from TOC according to the fol- lowing ratios (Doka 2007): TOC/BOD = 0.641, and TOC/COD = 0.479. It must be noted that these three parameters are related; just one of themCOD in this workmust be used in the eutrophication potential, because otherwise we would be double counting carbon emissions. Nitrogen from human metabolism is con- sidered in the model to be excreted only as urea. Thus, from the amount of urea pro- duced and its empirical formula, the nitro- gen released into wastewater is calculated. Phosphorus and other inorganics are just expressed as the initial amounts in food, because they are not subject to any trans- formation in the model. We can calculate the concentration of pol- lutants in wastewater by dividing the amounts released by the total water discharged, including water from toilet use and water in the food it- self and resulting fromdigestion (see equation 1). Impacts related to wastewater treatment and the nal amount of pollutants released to the envi- ronment must be subsequently modeled by the LCA practitioner, using, for example, the models suggested in the General Structure and System 528 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM Table 2 Parameters and default values used for allocation of toilet use processes Default Parameter value Comments Toilet ush volume (L) 11 Measured volume of a standard toilet tank at the University of Surrey Hand-washing water use (L/wash) 1.5 Assumption Toilet uses (times/day) 5 Assumption; this includes both urination and defecation Toilet uses at home (%) 57 This parameter is used to estimate the share of hand drying by means of a cotton towel. The remaining 33% is assumed to be done at work with a hot air blower. The value is an assumption based on the following gures: 5 working days per week, 2 weekend days per week. In a working day, three toilet trips are made at the workplace, and two at home. On weekends, all toilet trips are made at home. Toilet paper use (kg/day/person) 0.02 Calculated with the following data: tissue paper consumption in Western Europe in 2004 was 4.1 million tonnes, of which 62% was toilet tissue, and 18% was consumed in the United Kingdom and Ireland (European Tissue Symposium, 2005). The population of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2004 was 63,727,560 (Eurostat 2007). Hand-washing (liquid) soap use (g/wash) 3.3 Measured weight at University of Surrey toilet was 100 g liquid soap dispensed per 60 pushings. The gure considers two dispenser pushings per wash. Electric hot air blower power (kW) 2 Average power of a hand dryer (Handryers.net 2005) Time needed to dry hands (s) 30 Average drying time of a hand dryer (Handryers.net 2005) Towel weight (kg) 0.35 Assumed for a cotton towel Number of persons per household 2.4 Average for the United Kingdom (Ofce for National Statistics 2007) Frequency of towel washing (days) 7 Assumption Power demand of washing machine (kWh/kg towel) 0.43 Washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances 1995) Detergent use by washing machine (g/kg towel) 45 135 g detergent for a typical 3-kg load. Process related to washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances 1995) Water use by washing machine (L/kg towel) 17.2 Washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances 1995) Power demand of towel drier (kWh/kg towel) 0.7 Drying of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances 1995). Average of three technologies: air vented tumble driers, condenser tumble driers, and condenser washer driers Hand-washing wastewater composition (mg/L) COD: 400 Representative averages from several studies (Eriksson et al. 2002) Continued Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 529 FORUM Table 2 Continued Default Parameter value Comments BOD: 190 N-total: 10 P-total: 1 Laundry wastewater composition (mg/L) COD: 1270 Representative averages from several studies (Eriksson et al. 2002) BOD: 260 N-total: 10 P-total: 25 Note: COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological oxygen demand; N-total = nitrogen total; P-total = phosphorus total. One kilowatt (kW) 56.91 British Thermal Units (BTU)/minute 1.341 horsepower (HP). Boundaries section of this article. Table 3 shows an example of an inventory table obtained for a particular product, namely boiled broccoli, by applying the model to the composition for this product given in table 4. Results Model Sensitivity to Different Food Types The sensitivity of the model to food compo- sition has been tested on eight food products commonly present in daily western diets, with typical compositions givenintable 4: bread, broc- coli, apple, chicken meat, beer, cheese, a choco- late snack, and coffee. Selected inventory results are given in gure 3. Rather than comparing the environmental performance of these food items, the following discussion aims at exploring how the model responds to extremely different data inputs. Figure 3 shows that some parameters are highly variable from one food type to another, whereas others remain quite similar. The amount of solid and liquid excretion products emitted to wastewater (gure 3a), for example, is rather sim- ilar for all these food products, in the range 0.5 to 0.65 kg per kg food, primarily because water is one of the main components in food and 64% of the water is assumed to report to urine and feces regardless of the food type. Nevertheless, foods with low water content, such as the choco- late snack or the parmesan cheese, lead to similar values. This is explained by the fact that one of the main outputs of the organic degradation reac- tion, as shown in equation 1, is also water. If the mass of excretion products per kilogram ingested is broadly comparable for all foods, then the en- vironmental burdens from the technosphere pro- cesses described above (e.g., wastewater volume, gure 3d) will also be similar for all food products, because all these processes are allocated on the basis of the amount of solid and liquid excretion products. Carbon dioxide emissions due to respiration (gure 3b), conversely, are highly variable de- pending on the food type; between coffee and the chocolate snack, for instance, there is a difference of three orders of magnitude. This is clearly re- lated to the degradable carbon content in food, which is very high in dry foods, such as cheese and chocolate, and very low in drinks, such as coffee or beer. Methane emissions (gure 3c) fol- low a pattern similar to that for carbon dioxide emissions, because this pollutant is allocated on the basis of carbon content in food. In this case, not only degradable carbon but also nondegrad- able carbon (present as ber) contributes; how- ever, we see in table 4 that in most of the food products considered, the main source of carbon is other than ber. The volume of wastewater discharged to the sewer (gure 3d) shows a similar pattern for all foodstuffs. Across all products, the quantity of wastewater is 20 to 26 liters per kilogram of food, 530 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM Table 3 Inventory table for excretion of boiled broccoli Inputs and outputs Comments Inputs From nature Oxygen (g) 71 Oxygen needed for cell respiration of degradable constituents in food (carbohydrates, fat, and protein) From the technosphere Broccoli, boiled in unsalted water (g) 985 Grams of food ingested Toilet paper (g) 7.8 Allocated on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta mass Tap water (L) 24.4 Toilet ushing plus hand washing, plus towel washing, allocated on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta mass Soap (g) 6.5 Hand washing, allocated on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta mass Detergent (g) 0.36 Detergent for washing machine used for towel washing, which, in turn, has been used to wash hands Power (kWh) 0.023 Electricity for hot air blower, washing machine, and drier. All these processes are related to hand drying Outputs To nature Air emissions: Carbon dioxide (g) 80 Produced by catabolism of degradable constituents in food (carbohydrates, fat, and protein) Methane (g) 0.037 Produced by colonic bacteria. Degradation of all carbon-containing compounds, including ber Water (g) 337 36% of all water ingested or produced by catabolism is evaporated by the body through skin or breathing. Main source of water here is the initial content in food, but there is also water produced in cell respiration Heat (MJ) 1.0 Energy actually used by metabolic processes To the technosphere Toilet paper (g) 7.8 Present in wastewater Wastewater volume (L) 25 Sum of solid plus liquid excreta plus tap water Wastewater emissions from food: Urea (g) 9.8 All nitrogen in food is assumed to be included here N-urea (g) 4.6 Urea expressed as nitrogen mass TOC (g) 13 Carbon content in urea and ber BOD (g) 21 Related to carbon content from urea and ber COD (g) 28 Related to carbon content from urea and ber Sulphate (g) 2.2 From protein metabolism P-total (g) 0.57 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus liquid excreta. Na (g) 0.13 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus liquid excreta. K (g) 1.7 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus liquid excreta. Ca (g) 0.4 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus liquid excreta. Cl (g) 0.23 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus liquid excreta Continued Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 531 FORUM Table 3 Continued Inputs and outputs Comments Wastewater emissions from toilet use: BOD (g) 0.59 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing COD (g) 1.3 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing N-total (g) 0.030 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing P-total (g) 0.0064 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing Note: N, P, Na, K, Ca, and Cl refer to the elemental symbols. COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological oxygen demand; N-total = nitrogen total; P-total = phosphorus total. Megajoule (MJ) = 10 6 joules (J, SI) 239 kilocalories (kcal) 948 British Thermal Units (BTU). associated mainly with toilet use (ushing, wash- ing hands, etc.). The mass of pollutants discharged to the sewer (gure 3e) shows a different picture. In this case, big differences are seen between products, up to two orders of magnitude in all three parameters. There is a clear relationship betweenproteincon- tent and discharge of urea and sulphate, as pro- teins are the only food constituents containing nitrogen and sulphur in their empirical formula. Carbonaceous organic matter, measured as COD, is related not only to proteins but also to ber and degradable organic matter in general. This gure shows only the amount of pollutants derived from solid and liquid excretion products, whereas the contribution of toilet use (gray wastewater from hands washing and towel washing) is excluded. Table 4 Composition of several food products, in grams per 100 g edible portion Coffee, White Broccoli, Roasted Lager Chocolate Parmesan Apple, infusion, bread, Component boiled chicken beer snack cheese nonpeeled average sliced Water (g) 91.1 65.3 93 2 27.6 84.5 98.3 38.6 Protein (g) 3.1 27.3 0.3 7.5 36.2 0.4 0.2 7.9 Fat (g) 0.8 7.5 Tr 26 29.7 0.1 Tr 1.6 Carbohydrate (g) 1.1 0 Tr 63 0.9 11.8 0.3 46.1 Fiber (g) 2.3 0 Tr N 0 1.8 0 1.9 Alcohol (g) 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 P (g) 0.057 0.2 0.019 0.2 0.68 0.011 0.007 0.095 Na (g) 0.013 0.1 0.007 0.12 0.756 0.003 Tr 0.461 K (g) 0.17 0.3 0.039 0.33 0.152 0.12 0.092 0.137 Ca (g) 0.04 0.017 0.005 0.2 1.025 0.004 0.003 0.177 Cl (g) 0.023 0.088 0.02 0.21 1.26 Tr 0.003 0.829 Source: Food Standards Agency (2002). Note: P, Na, K, Ca, and Cl refer to the elemental symbols. Tr = trace (considered as zero); N = no reliable information (considered as zero). Nonetheless, table 3 shows that the contribution of toilet use is one order of magnitude lower for the particular case of broccoli. Finally, as expected, the energy content of food is also highly variable (shown in parenthe- ses on top of the bars in gure 3f), as also is the energy efciency of the human body, depending on the composition of food. The efciencies go as high as 95% for beer and as low as 63% for broc- coli. The most energy-efcient foods appear to be alcoholic drinks, due to the ethanol content, and also fat- and carbohydrate-richfoods, whereas the least efcient are those containing a high share of proteins, such as chicken, and especially, ber, as in the case of broccoli. Proteins show a lower efciency due to an important energy loss in the form of urea, whereas the human body is simply 532 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM Figure 3 Selected model results for several food products. unable to digest the ber in ber-rich foods and use its chemical energy. Importance of Human-Excretion-Related Impacts in the Overall Life Cycle of Foodstuffs Figure 4 shows the cradle-to-grave results for consumption in the United Kingdom of 1 kg broccoli grown in Spain. Details of the life cy- cle modeling for these crops are provided by Mil` a i Canals and colleagues (2008). The excretion and wastewater stage includes the emissions de- scribed in this article in addition to the treat- ment of the wastewater described in table 3; the latter has been modeled as described by Mu noz and colleagues (2007). Global warming potential (GWP) and eutrophication potential (EP) have been assessed according to the CML2001 method (Guin ee et al. 2002); in addition, the inventory indicators water use (WU) and primary energy use (PEU) are shown in gure 4. EP (gure 4a) is dominated by the home and excretion and wastewater stages, which con- tribute 32% and 45%, respectively, to the total EP related to the broccoli life cycle. The former contributes due to the loss of nitrogen and phos- phorus from broccoli to the boiling water during cooking. Nitrogen and phosphorus are not effec- tively removed inthe sewage plant and so become emissions to aquatic ecosystems; note that these gures assume that only 11% of wastewater is treated in plants equipped with nutrient-removal processes, because this is the current situation in the United Kingdom (Mu noz et al. 2007). Also, there is the contribution from leachate emissions from landlling of food waste (uneaten broccoli; see the top section in the Home bar in gure 4a). Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 533 FORUM Figure 4 Contribution of different life cycle stages and items to eutrophication potential, global warming potential, water use, and primary energy use for consumption in the United Kingdom of 1 kg Spain-grown broccoli. WWT = wastewater. Nonetheless, wastewater treatment of feces and urine creates the biggest contribution to EP; this is mostly due to nitrogen and phosphorus com- pounds. In the case of GWP (gure 4b), the contribu- tion from the excretion and wastewater phase is not as signicant as in the nutrient-related im- pact. Energy use at home (mainly for boiling the broccoli) dominates GWP through carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, whereas fertilizer re- lated nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and CO 2 from fuel use by farm machinery dominate the cropping stage. The GWP reduction in cultivation, due to the C embodied in broccoli through photosyn- thesis (seen as a negative bar in Figure 4b), is almost entirely reemitted to the atmosphere dur- ing the excretion and wastewater stage. The re- maining C is emitted in the landlled food waste and/or remains in the landll or sewage sludge from wastewater. Concerning WU (gure 4c), the cropping stage is clearly the most important one, as it is responsible for 73%of the overall water consump- tion. Broccoli is an irrigated crop in Spain, using something less than 200 L/kg. The contributions of the home (15%) and excretion and wastewater (9%) stages are not negligible, however. It must be highlighted that the water use associated with the home stage is mainly cooling water used in electricity production, rather than water actually used in the kitchen for cooking. Although the contribution of these two stages may seem low, it must be borne in mind that if UK-grown broc- coli were considered, these relative contributions would be much higher, because in the United Kingdom broccoli is rain fed. Finally, PEU (gure 4d) is clearly dominated by the home stage, due to the electricity and gas consumed for broccoli cooking, which account for 65% of the PEU. Retail and distribution and cropping are responsible for 22% and 11%, re- spectively. In this case study, it is concluded that human excretion and further wastewater treatment have a negligible contribution from a PEU perspective. Nevertheless, it is interesting to observe that the PEU of toilet use processes 534 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy FORUM (production and delivery of toilet paper, soap, tap water, etc.) is three times higher than that related to treating the fecal wastewater in the sewage plant. Discussion and Conclusions Human excretion has proven to be signi- cant in the overall life cycle of food products. Particularly for the nutrient-related EP, emis- sions from postconsumer wastewater treatment are of paramount importance, together withother home-related nutrient losses through boiling wa- ter and food waste. This is crucial, as it is often concluded from partial LCA studies, cradle-to- gate or cradle-to-retail, that EP is dominated by the cropping stage. Obviously, nutrient emissions from agriculture merit attention due to their dif- fuse nature and the fact that it is possible to reduce them. Nonetheless, nutrient emissions from do- mestic activities should not be overlooked. The results obtained in this work suggest the impor- tance of educating consumers on healthy cook- ing to avoid ushing so much of the foods nutri- ent content down the drain (e.g., 30%of proteins and 34%of phosphorus are lost to the water when broccoli is boiled). The amount of nutrients lost in the cooking stage will vary signicantly with food type, particularly with foodstuffs that are eaten raw (e.g., lettuce, fruit); in this case, there would be less nutrient loss in the kitchen but more releases after treatment of fecal wastewater. It should be noted that the contribution of excre- tion and wastewater to GWP would also be more signicant for foodstuffs that are eaten raw (i.e., when no energy is used for cooking). In addi- tion, the contribution from the distribution stage is relatively high, and the relative importance of excretionis therefore reduced inthe example pre- sented here because broccoli is transported over 2,600 kilometers (km). 7 The model presented here provides a tool to enable human excretion to be included in food LCAs. This tool might also be of interest for other environmental analysis methods, such as mate- rial ow analysis and substance ow analysis, as the model can be used to close the balances for carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, among other substances present in food. Concerning the application of this model to regions different from the United Kingdom and other western countries, we can make a distinc- tion between human body modeling, on the one hand, and toilet use and wastewater treatment plants, on the other. The default values used here to model the latter are representative of the United Kingdom, but they can be modied at will by the user. The balances obtained from human body modeling are based on gures from western sources but should be generally applica- ble. For most of the variables included, data from different regions have not been found, but the model should give reasonable estimates of emis- sions from the macronutrients in food. The case study presented here can be con- sidered as an attributional LCA. Our model has proven to be useful in highlighting the relative importance of excretion in a food products life cycle. Nevertheless, it has also been shown to be very sensitive to food composition, which sug- gests that it may also be useful in consequential LCA, dealing with such topics as the environ- mental assessment of dietary shifts. Until now, only the comparative environmental impacts of producing the ingredients for different diets have been assessed; this study shows that differences related to excretion emissions from different diet compositions may also be important, particularly when changes in the balance of macronutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, ber) occur. Future research should check the signicance of the ex- cretion stage for a range of food products. In addi- tion, the model could be developed further to al- lowfor differing Ncontent inproteins fromdiffer- ent sources (e.g., to distinguish between animal- based and plant-based proteins); however, ini- tial exploration of variations in protein/N factors suggests that the resultant changes in excretion impacts are likely to be small. Acknowledgements This research was carried out under project RES-224-25-0044 (http://www.bangor. ac.uk/relu), funded as part of the UK Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. Dr. Mil` a i Canals acknowledges GIRO CT (http://www.giroct.net) for its logistic support. The authors kindly thank Prof. Mike Clifford for Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 535 FORUM his useful comments on the model, Gabor Doka for his support inwastewater treatment modeling, and the three anonymous reviewers who have provided constructive comments on this article. Notes 1. Depending on the goal of the study, LCAs are usually classied as follows (Weidema, 2003): Attributional: life cycle assessments of the ac- countancy type, typically applied for hot-spot identication, for product declarations, and for generic consumer information. This would cor- respond to the type of study carried out in our article. Consequential: they study the environmental consequences of possible (future) changes be- tween alternative product systems, typically ap- plied inproduct development and inpublic policy making. This type of LCA would correspond to a case study dealing with diet shifting. 2. One milliliter (mL) = 10 3 liters (L) 0.034 uid ounces. 3. One kilogram(kg, SI) 2.204 pounds (lb). 4. The presence of mercaptans in intestinal gas is regarded as a local environmental quality issue and not included in the model. 5. One atmosphere (atm) 760 torr 14.70 pounds/inch 2 . 6. 310
K 36.85
C 98.33
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Roland Clift is distinguished professor of environmental tech- nology in the Centre for Environmental Strat- egy at the University of Surrey and president- elect of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. 538 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy