Chalmers Conferences, LCM 2013

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF WATER FOOTPRINT REDUCTION AND TRADE-OFF AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL CATEGORIES IN THE INTRODUCTION OF INNOVATIVE PACKAGING SYSTEM FOR READY MEAL
Masaharu Motoshita, Kiyotaka Tahara, Norihiro Itsubo, Atsushi Inaba

Last modified: 2014-09-11

Abstract


Food loss may results in significant water availability loss. A new innovative packaging
system (MicVac) for ready meals can make it possible to preserve ready meal at maximum
45 days in chilled storage by applying vaccum-sealed package. Water footprint and other
whole impacts relevant to ready meals made in conventional way and MicVac were
assessed and compared. The results showed predominance of ready meal by MicVac
system in both water footprint and full impact assessment mainly due to saving food
ingredient input related to unsold meal loss. It could be quantitatively verified that the
effects of the increase in power consumption for microwave cooking and chilled storage in
MicVac system were relatively smaller compared to the advantage of saving food loss in
the perspectives of both water and other relevant environmental issues.

Keywords


Water footprint; Food loss; Impact assessment; Trade-off among environmental categories; Packaging system

References


Itsubo, N., & Inaba, A. (2012) LIME2 Life-cycle Impact assessment Method Based on Endpoint modeling. JLCA news English edition, 14, Retrived from http://lca-forum.org/english/pdf/No14_C1_Outline.pdf

Motoshita, M., Itsubo, N., & Inaba, A. (2011). Development of impact factors on damage to health by infectious diseases caused by domestic water scarcity. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 16(1), 65-73. doi:10.1007/s11367-010-0236-8

Motoshita, M., Itsubo, N., & Inaba, A. (2010) Damage assessment of water scarcity for agricultural use. Proceedings of 9th International Conference on EcoBalance, D1-1410.

Tahara, K., Onoye, T., Kobayashi, K., Yamagishi, K., Tsuruta, S., & Nakano, K. (2010) Development of Inventory Database for Environmental Analysis (IDEA). Proceedings of 9th International Conference on EcoBalance, P-119.


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