Environmental Footprint of Inland Fisheries: Integrating LCA Analysis to Assess the Potential of Wastewater-Based Microalga Cultivation as a Promising Solution for Animal Feed Production

• Published in: Processes Vol. 11; no. 11; p. 3255
• Main Authors: Zuorro, Antonio, García-Martínez, Janet B., Barajas-Solano, Andrés F., Rodríguez-Lizcano, Adriana, Kafarov, Viatcheslav
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.11.2023
• Subjects: Algae; Alternative energy sources; Animal feed; Animal feeding and feeds; Aquaculture; Aquatic microorganisms; Biomass; Colombia; Costs (Law); Emissions; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Environmental impact; Environmental sustainability; Eutrophication; Feeds; Fish industry; Fisheries; Life cycle assessment; Life cycles; Liquid wastes; Metabolites; Natural resources; Nutrients; Toxicity; Wastewater; Colombia
• ISSN: 2227-9717; 2227-9717
• DOI: 10.3390/pr11113255

This study evaluated the environmental impacts of producing 1 kg of biomass for animal feed grown in inland fisheries effluents as a culture medium using the ReCiPe method. Four scenarios with two downstream alternatives were modeled using the life cycle assessment method: Algal Life Feed (ALF), Algal Life Feed with Recycled nutrients (ALF+Rn), Pelletized Biomass (PB), and Pelletized Biomass with Recycled nutrients (PB+Rn). The findings reveal a substantial reduction in environmental impacts when wastewater is employed as a water source and nutrient reservoir. However, the eutrophication and toxicity-related categories reported the highest normalized impacts. ALF+Rn emerges as the most promising scenario due to its reduced energy consumption, highlighting the potential for further improvement through alternative energy sources in upstream and downstream processes. Therefore, liquid waste from fish production is a unique opportunity to implement strategies to reduce the emission of nutrients and pollutants by producing microalgae rich in various high-value-added metabolites.