Chapter 8 - Environmental impact of cheese production

Abstract

Cheese is produced from the milk of mammals, mainly cattle. The world cheese production continues to grow in the coming years, considering the human eating habits and the good nutritional qualities of cheese. This work describes the cheese production system and its associated environmental aspects that can result in potential environmental impacts. Following, it discusses the main methods of impact reduction in environmental management, with examples in studies on cheese production. It also presents the main contributing flows, the analysis, and interpretation of the associated environmental impacts, based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Cheese production is responsible for the consumption of natural and energy resources and emissions associated with the different stages and unit operations. From the stages of the cheese product system, milk production on the farm is the most impactful in the life cycle, with emphasis on land use, enteric emissions, and animal feed. In the industrial stage the consumption of water, energy, cleaning products, and effluent generation are the most impactful environmental aspects. The impacts can change considerably depending on the type of cheese. For example, the fresh ones, with higher water content, tend to cause less impact and cured ones, drier, more impactful per unit of product. The sources of emission originating from the machines and equipment used in the production process, with emphasis on fossil fuels or biofuels used in the generation of steam. The emissions differ according to the fuel type, fuel quality, efficiency, and control of the combustion equipment. Better logistical planning and use of biofuels can reduce the impacts of emissions, mainly those from the transport of milk from the farm to the industry. The life cycle–based methods are recent in assessing the impacts of products and services, with the dairy sector concentrating on the past 20 years. LCA has been a widely used method for identifying hotspots and proposing improvements in several product systems. The impact categories most considered in LCA studies on cheese are climate change, acidification, water depletion, eutrophication, and resource depletion. Other studies also include single-score categories, as cumulative energy demand and water footprint. In the case of cheese the works identify the best fuels for power generation and transportation, alternatives for the use of by-products, and the treatment of industrial effluents. As a future trend, it is expected a continuous search supported by the LCA method for new energy sources, cycling of water, and improving efficiency in the use of natural resources, minimizing environmental impacts, with a focus on clean production approaches and industrial ecology and circular economy. From the consumer’s point of view, environmental labeling opens up the possibility of stimulating practices and products that contribute to improving the sustainability of cheese production.