Abstract
Environmental impacts of fishery production have resulted in increased concern and awareness. Thailand, as one of the largest global fish exporters, faces challenges related to environmental problems caused by fishery processes. Here, the environmental impact of Thai surimi production was estimated based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, focusing specifically on two Thai surimi products made from goatfish and ponyfish caught within the southern region of Thailand. Three impact categories where explored: global warming, acidification and eutrophication. Life cycle impacts were calculated for one kg of product using both mass and economic allocations. Results of this study indicated that goatfish has lower impacts than ponyfish for all the impact categories. Fuel consumption during the fishery phase and electricity consumption during processing were the main parameters leading to most of the considered environmental impacts. The value of Global Warming Potential(GWP) ranged within 1.3‒3.0 kg CO2eq for goatfish and 2.2‒7.1 kg CO2eq ponyfish depending on the allocation method. The acidification impact of goatfish and ponyfish were revealed at 3.2‒7.3 gSO2eq and 12.7‒39.7 gSO2eq, respectively. The eutrophication of goatfish and ponyfish were 0.7‒1.6 gPO4eq and 2.5‒8.1 gPO4eq, respectively. Sensitivity analysis of fuel consumption, electricity consumption, product yield and allocation method were evaluated.
Highlights
The food industry is fundamental to the Thai economy with abundant resources delivering huge revenues to the nation in terms of foreign exchange exports
Inventory data were divided into two subsystems: fishery activities and surimi processing
Sensitivity analysis was conducted for four parameters: fuel used in the fishery phase, economic allocation in surimi processing, yield of fish in surimi processing, and electricity use
Summary
The food industry is fundamental to the Thai economy with abundant resources delivering huge revenues to the nation in terms of foreign exchange exports. In 2016, the Thai fishery industry recorded a captured production of 1.5 million tonnes and was ranked 14th with 2% of the worldwide gross. Total catches of marine and freshwater fish in 2016 were 1.08 and 0.57 million tonnes, respectively (Department of Fisheries, 2016). Morrissey and Tan (2000) claimed that surimi processing was responsible for a massive scale for wastewater and solid wastes pollution. Both direct and indirect impacts of fishing operation, including extraction, transformation of natural materials and fossil fuels, are considered as environmental inventory (Avadi and Freon, 2013)
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