Avaliação do impacto ambiental na produção de queijo mussarela sob a ótica da avalição do ciclo de vida

Abstract

Currently, we observe a growing trend in the market towards valuing processed products with minimal environmental impact. Given the inevitable environmental influence on the entire production chain, an in-depth analysis of production processes is imperative, aiming to understand and mitigate the impact of each stage. This study aimed to highlight the potential environmental impact of processing beef mozzarella cheese, type pasta filada, in the dairy basin in Jussara – GO. To this end, the Life Cycle Assessment tool (LCA) was used using the Simapro 9.2.0.2 software, method (ReCiPe Midpoint (H) V1.12 / World Recipe H) in order to evaluate the environmental impacts corresponding to the categories:climate change (CC), terrestrial acidification (TA), freshwater eutrophication (ET) and accumulated energy demand (CED) present in the mozzarella cheese production system. In this sense, the inputs and outputs of the production system were analyzed, considering its gate-to-gate approach to the industry. The methodologies used were LCA following the structure: definition of objective and scope, life cycle inventory analysis (IACV), life cycle impact assessment (IACV) and the Economic Feasibility study to replace electrical energy from network (hydroelectric energy) by photovoltaic solar energy due to the reduction of the environmental impact arising from the production system. In the environmental impact categories analyzed, the largest contributions came from the dairy farming phase, with 97.84% in CC, 99.35% in AT, 99.27% in ET and 71.76% in CED, due to the consumption of forage crops and the cultivation of grains that make up animal feed. The results obtained in the study showed that for a kilo of mozzarella cheese, emissions were 10.07 kg of CO2eq, 0.11 kg SO2eq, 0.01 kg PO4eq. and 18.88 MJeq, respectively for CC, AT, ET and CED. It is possible to infer that on a global scale (supply chain) the impact of mozzarella cheese production in the industrial phase (dairy) is not significant. In relation to the economic feasibility study for replacing the energy source as a solution to reduce environmental impact, it presents an advantage in the image of the dairy in the consumer market, in addition to providing a reduction in emissions and, mainly, in the costs of consumption of energy.