IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v66y2012icp27-39.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life cycle assessment of phosphorus alternatives for Swedish agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Linderholm, Kersti
  • Tillman, Anne-Marie
  • Mattsson, Jan Erik

Abstract

Phosphorus is an important nutrient in plant cultivation. Global reserves of phosphate rock worth mining are limited. Reuse of phosphorus in wastewater is therefore important. This LCA study assessed the environmental impact of four ways to supply Swedish agriculture with phosphorus fertiliser of acceptable quality as regards cadmium content: mineral fertiliser; certified sewage sludge; struvite (MgNH4PO4·6H2O) precipitated from wastewater; and phosphorus recovered from sludge incineration. These were examined with respect to impacts on global warming, eutrophication, energy demand and cadmium flows to farmland. The functional unit chosen was 11kgP (25.2kgP2O5) to agricultural land, which was the average phosphorus output (removal with harvest) per hectare from Swedish farmland in 2007. Using sewage sludge directly on farmland was the most efficient option in terms of energy and emissions of greenhouse gases, but also added most cadmium to the soil. Phosphorus recovery from incinerated sludge was the most energy demanding option and gave most emissions of greenhouse gases. Despite great concerns about cadmium in Swedish fertilisers and sludge, it was found that almost no regular analyses for cadmium are made on imported food by the authorities, although food imports are constantly increasing. Total imports of cadmium with food are therefore unknown.

Suggested Citation

  • Linderholm, Kersti & Tillman, Anne-Marie & Mattsson, Jan Erik, 2012. "Life cycle assessment of phosphorus alternatives for Swedish agriculture," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 27-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:66:y:2012:i:c:p:27-39
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2012.04.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344912001048
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2012.04.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tidåker, P. & Sjöberg, C. & Jönsson, H., 2007. "Local recycling of plant nutrients from small-scale wastewater systems to farmland—A Swedish scenario study," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 388-405.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theobald, Tim F.H. & Schipper, Mark & Kern, Jürgen, 2016. "Phosphorus flows in Berlin-Brandenburg, a regional flow analysis," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Nancy Diaz-Elsayed & Jiayi Hua & Nader Rezaei & Qiong Zhang, 2023. "A Decision Framework for Designing Sustainable Wastewater-Based Resource Recovery Schemes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-27, February.
    3. Senthilkumar, Kalimuthu & Mollier, Alain & Delmas, Magalie & Pellerin, Sylvain & Nesme, Thomas, 2014. "Phosphorus recovery and recycling from waste: An appraisal based on a French case study," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 97-108.
    4. Vadenbo, Carl & Guillén-Gosálbez, Gonzalo & Saner, Dominik & Hellweg, Stefanie, 2014. "Multi-objective optimization of waste and resource management in industrial networks – Part II: Model application to the treatment of sewage sludge," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 41-51.
    5. Reijnders, L., 2014. "Phosphorus resources, their depletion and conservation, a review," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 32-49.
    6. Heimersson, Sara & Svanström, Magdalena & Cederberg, Christel & Peters, Gregory, 2017. "Improved life cycle modelling of benefits from sewage sludge anaerobic digestion and land application," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 126-134.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:66:y:2012:i:c:p:27-39. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.