| Author | Dashzegve, Davaasuren |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Engineering in
Agricultural Systems and Engineering, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | LCA is an environmental management tool, which is used to compile and evaluate the
environmental impacts from raw material acquisition and extraction to final disposal
associated with products and systems throughout its life cycle.
This study was carried out with the LCA of greenhouse grown tomatoes in Thailand. The
New King Kong variety was selected as tomato seed. The functional unit of this study was
1 kg of tomato and the system boundary was cradle to gate of greenhouse tomato fruits
(seedling process to packaging process). The third order of LCA was applied in this study
by using SimaPro 7.1 software program. The Eco-Indicator 99 H/H was selected as default
method for evaluating environmental impacts of greenhouse grown tomatoes. LCIA based
on the characterization and single score elements. The selected impact categories of Eco-
Indicator 99 method are carcinogens, respiratory organic and inorganics, climate change,
radiation, ozone layer, acidification and ecotoxicity, land use, mineral, fossil fuels.
The study revealed that most significant environmental impact of greenhouse grown
tomatoes is caused by calcium nitrate according to the characterization element. Its highest
impact was on the minerals which contributed 78.8% of total inventory results of this
study. Calcium nitrate also was shown to have 66.2% of impact on the ecotoxicity and
radiation (59.4%), ozone layer (47.3%), carcinogens (43.6%), climate change (39.2%),
respiratory inorganics (37.4%) and fossil fuels (36.6%). The second highest environmental
impact comes from LDPE, for which the highest impact was on the ozone layer, which was
41.5% of total inventory results. And the next impact of LDPE was on the respiroratory
inorganics (34.4%). The third significant environmental impact is caused by cardboard
packaging box. According to the analysis, it had an almost equal amount of impact on the
environment as LDPE. It’s highest impact was on the land use (51.9%) followed by the
radiation (30.6%) and the carcinogens (10.2%). The fourth and fifth highest impacts almost
equally come from PP and yarn cotton.
In terms of single score elements, most significant environmental impact of greenhouse
grown tomatoes is caused by calcium nitrate which contributed 35.5% of total impacts for
the analyzed 1 kg of tomato. Other inventory inputs which have impact on the environment
are PP (21.1%) and LPDE (14.7%) which are non-biodegradable in nature and a major
cause of environmental pollution. |
| Year | 2009 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Agricultural and Aquatic Systems(AS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Salokhe, Vilas M. ; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Jayasuriya, H. P. W. ;Soni, Peeyush ;Anal, Anil K. .; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Government of The Netherlands; |