Valorizing Agro-Industry Residues to Improve the Environmental Sustainability of Frozen Products

Considering the paradigm shift towards renewable energy due to the high ecological impacts associated with fossil fuels, generating biogas energy from agricultural residue for electricity is a smart use. However, the sustainability of biogas production can be limited by several factors along its production. Thus, this study evaluated the environmental sustainability of electricity generation from a biogas plant fed with maize silage, animal manure, and agri-food residue at Osimo (Marche region) in Italy. The plant produces, onaverage 12,000 Nm3of biogas and 23 MWh of electricity daily with slight variations due to the addition of different quantities andtypes of agri-food residues. We conducted the study using the life cycle assessment methodology (ISO 14040/14044). The selected functional unit (FU) was 1 MWh of electricity produced from the biogas, and the impact assessment was carried out based on the ReCiPe method (2016). The global warming score obtained was 429 kg CO2 eq./FU, with maize cultivation contributing more than 90% to the total impact. Substituting maize silage with more agri-industrial residue can significantly improve the overall environmental sustainability of the biogas plant