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Abstract

All waste treatment options have environmental impacts. As waste to food is one of the many possible ways to valorise (or treat) food waste, environmental impacts of different waste to food processes need to be compared alongside other waste treatment methods. In addition, the environmental impact of the prevention of waste needs to also be compared to waste to food impacts. This chapter introduces the method of life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of various production and treatment options. We highlight multiple methods to conduct environmental impact assessment, including a bottom up LCA, or a hybrid IO-LCA approach. We cover the drawbacks and limits of these different LCA methods. We highlight best practice waste to food environmental assessment case studies, including the REFRESH FORKLIFT toolkit. We intend for this chapter to be a broad introduction to these topics, empowering a decision maker or researcher to understand the processes, and limits of waste to food environmental impact assessments.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is the preprint version of a manuscript accepted for publication by Wageningen Academic Publishers. The published copy is available at https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-929-9_9
Publisher Keywords:	waste to food; waste hierarchy; life cycle analysis; input-output; food waste valorisation; food prevention
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Healthcare Services Research & Management

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