LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNITY COMPOSTING OF AGRICULTURAL AND AGRO INDUSTRIAL WASTES

Abstract

This study applied simplifed Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), a comprehensive sustainability assessment of a products or processes along their whole life cycle, to assess sustainability performance of community composting system that treated agricultural and agro industrial wastes to produce compost in powder and granular form. Impact assessment of the powder compost system (PCS) showed that it impacted environment at 1.9E-11 point, economic at 7,238.75 THB (Thai Baht), and social at 3.33 scoring units, while the granular compost system (GCS) impacted the environment, economic and social aspects at 2.1E-11 point, 9,383.35 THB, and 3.50 scoring units, respectively. Comparison of PCS and GCS showed that GCS impacted 1.1, 1.3 and 1.1 times higher than PCS on environment, economic, and social aspects, respectively. LCSA evaluation revealed that GCS was 1.00001 times more sustainable than PCS. Improvement of compost systems through application of compost blanket and substitution of fuel on both systems could reduce the impact on the environment, increase economic benefts while there would be no changes on social impact, and furthermore it could increase the sustainability of composting systems.