Calculation and utility analysis of lychee life-cycle carbon emissions considering food loss and waste

Abstract

Food loss and waste become the sever problem in the modern society. This paper studies the carbon emissions related to different circulation forms of lychee，which is a typical perishable fruit in China. First, we construct a kinetic model of lychee by using the Arrhenius equation. And then, we propose a carbon emission measurement with the unit effective carbon emission and the comprehensive carbon emission utility by using life cycle assessment. With this measurement, we measure the rate of loss and life cycle carbon emissions of four lychee's circulation scenarios, including: cold chain, room temperature, cold chain broken at the beginning and cold chain broken at the end.The results show that with the traditional carbon emission measurement, the carbon emissions generated by the cold chain circulation scenario are the highest in total carbon emissions under the four scenarios. But using the unit effective carbon emissions measurement, the total carbon emissions under the cold chain circulation situation is 34.84 % less than those of the room temperature circulation. Under the cold chain circulation scenario, the unit effective carbon emission and comprehensive carbon emission utility are 0.38 kgCO2/kg and 85.33 %, respectively. Improving the rate of cold chain circulation can improve the comprehensive carbon emission utility and achieve land-saving. Comparing with the cold chain circulation rate in China in today, when it increases to 95 %, the comprehensive carbon emission utility of lychee supply chain increases to 81.65 %, and the required land is reduced by 54.84 %.