Life Cycle Assessment of Honey Production and Processing in the United States.

摘要

Honey is a unique agricultural product: a product of bees rather than the product of more typical crop cultivation. This study reports the application and outcomes of a life cycle assessment of honey, which was conducted to quantify the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and criteria pollutants associated with honey production and processing.;Industry data for year 2008 or 2009 were collected by mail and telephone survey, and the honey producers and processors surveyed were selected from major honey-producing states. A spreadsheet-based model was built to track the emissions from each life cycle stage.;Life cycle modeling of a case study that evaluates a particular combination of a honey producer and a honey processor shows that the total life cycle greenhouse gas emissions may range generally from 0.67 to 0.92 kg CO 2-equivalent per kilogram of processed honey, and additional case studies provided a wider range of emissions. This large range is attributable to differences among honey producers, honey processors, and the distance raw honey travels between the two. The honey life cycle presents some particularly interesting problems for the treatment of co-products. Co-product treatment methods are discussed, alternative methods explored, and the rationale for economic allocation is explained.;Overall analysis shows that honey production emits more GHGs and criteria pollutants than honey processing. Moreover, truck transport of bees is the largest contributor of both GHG emissions and criteria pollutants within the life cycle of raw honey production. Honey processing contributes a big proportion of sulfur oxides emissions due to the use of natural gas and electricity.;Keywords Life cycle assessment, Co-product allocation, Honey, Pollination, Carbon footprint