Life Cycle Assessment of Large-scale Piggery for Environmental Assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used to establish inventory of energy consumption and pollutant emission and to assess life-cycle environmental impacts of large-scale piggery, and then the way could be found for lessen negative environmental impacts. Four impact categories were investigated, including energy depletion, eutrophication, global warming and acidification, with the impact indices of 8.38×10^-3, 1.91×10^-3, 9.80×10^-3 and 2.01×10^-2, respectively. The life cycle was divided into three stages, i.e. feed ingredients manufacture, swine rearing and wastes disposal, with the environmental impact complex index of 2.52×10^-2, 1.23×10^-2 and 2.71×10^-3, respectively. The results showed that manufacture of feed ingredients had the largest environmental impact. Therefore, reducing nitrogenous fertilizer consumption and implementing energy-saving and cleaner production in the production of fertilizers were essential to control the life cycle environmental impacts of large-scale piggery.