Environmental impacts of wheat-based vodka production using life cycle assessment

Abstract

Food waste is a major issue in the United States, with over 30–40% of food produced being wasted. It may be possible to utilize food waste streams to generate other end products, for instance using expired baked goods to produce distilled spirits such as vodka. To examine the possible benefits, a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed, comparing the potential environmental impacts of vodka generated from expired baked goods to those of craft and premium mass-produced vodka generated from virgin wheat. The results showed the largest normalized potential environmental impacts in the categories of human toxicity, agricultural land occupation, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, and climate change. These impacts stem both from the production of the wheat and the glass bottles used in storage. Vodka production using expired baked goods has lower environmental impacts across all considered categories than production processes using virgin wheat. A sensitivity analysis that considered local bottle manufacturing, recycled bottle glass content, process water recycling, distribution distance, and the use of organic wheat showed that, even in the worst case, vodka produced from expired baked goods had the lowest environmental impact. For this case to have a comparable environmental impact, the vodka would need to be shipped airfreight across the US, indicating that this novel production process has potential for significant reductions in environmental impact.