Sustainable Industrial Systems, Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Sustainable Industrial Systems, Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Waste Manag. 2020 Jul 15;113:359-368. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2020.06.012. Epub 2020 Jun 22.
Current studies on the food-energy-water nexus do not capture effects on human health. This study presents a new methodology for assessing the environmental sustainability in the food-energy-water-health nexus on a life cycle basis. The environmental impacts, estimated through life cycle assessment, are used to determine a total impact on the nexus by assigning each life cycle impact to one of the four nexus aspects. These are then normalised, weighted and aggregated to rank the options for each aspect and determine an overall nexus impact. The outputs of the assessment are visualised in a "nexus quadrilateral" to enable structured and transparent interpretation of results. The methodology is illustrated by considering resource recovery from household food waste within the context of a circular economy. The impact on the nexus of four treatment options is quantified: anaerobic digestion, in-vessel composting, incineration and landfilling. Anaerobic digestion is environmentally the most sustainable option with the lowest overall impact on the nexus. Incineration is the second best option but has a greater impact on the health aspect than landfilling. Landfilling has the greatest influence on the water aspect and the second highest overall impact on the nexus. In-vessel composting is the worst option overall, despite being favoured over incineration and landfilling in circular-economy waste hierarchies. This demonstrates that "circular" does not necessarily mean "environmentally sustainable." The proposed methodology can be used to guide businesses and policy makers in interpreting a wide range of environmental impacts of products, technologies and human activities within the food-energy-water-health nexus.
当前关于食物-能源-水纽带的研究并未捕捉到其对人类健康的影响。本研究提出了一种新的方法，用于在生命周期基础上评估食物-能源-水-健康纽带的环境可持续性。通过生命周期评估估算出的环境影响被分配到纽带的四个方面之一，以确定对纽带的总影响。然后对这些影响进行归一化、加权和汇总，以对每个方面的选项进行排名，并确定纽带的总体影响。评估的结果通过“纽带四边形”进行可视化，以便对结果进行结构化和透明的解释。该方法通过考虑在循环经济背景下从家庭食物垃圾中回收资源来说明。量化了四种处理选项对纽带的影响：厌氧消化、容器内堆肥、焚烧和填埋。厌氧消化在环境方面是最可持续的选择，对纽带的总体影响最小。焚烧是第二佳选择，但对健康方面的影响大于填埋。填埋对水方面的影响最大，对纽带的总体影响仅次于焚烧。尽管在循环经济废物层次结构中，容器内堆肥比焚烧和填埋更受欢迎，但它是总体上最糟糕的选择。这表明“循环”并不一定意味着“环境可持续”。拟议的方法可用于指导企业和决策者解释产品、技术和人类活动在食物-能源-水-健康纽带内的广泛环境影响。
