This article studies the energetic potential of biogas obtainable from winery waste production through an anaerobic digestion (AD) process, within the territorial context of Emilia Romagna in Italy. The winery district produces about 5.2 million tons of grapes. These wastes are processes by anaerobic digestion in 5 biodigesters, this methodology allows to re- introduce in the production process 800,000 tons of food waste, consisting of: vegetable waste, wood chips and waste from pruning. Reusing production waste generates 12,236 million Nm3 per year of biogas and 104,283 million kW/h per year of electrical energy.
Nowadays, many companies all over the world are improving their environmental responsibilities and trying to reduce the quantity of waste disposal in landfills and to re-introduce them in the process system as secondary raw materials, closing the process loop and improving the concept of circular economy and sustainable development.
These goals can be reached by different business strategies, industrial symbiosis is a business strategy through which it is possible increase the sustainability of production processes, reducing carbon emissions and the consumption of raw materials. The benefits from the implementation of an industrial symbiosis system can be achieved through the creation of a corporate network that can monitor the entire production system. The partnership between a winery and an energy company in Emilia Romagna agro-food district has enabled the implementation of a production innovation that allows to re-use food waste from wine production.
Beside the positive environmental impact of the anaerobic digestion process, there is a positive economic impact because part of the energy produced by anaerobic digestion it’s sold on the private market.
Data and results of this study has been elaborated by analytic software as SimaPro® which allows to analyse environmental and economic parameters.
These results show that partnership between companies and the implementation of process innovations, could be reached by food manufacturers which requires a high energy needs and that produce significant amounts of organic waste, reusable by-products as raw material for biogas production.
This allows to reach a more sustainable production system and to improve circular economy.
Keywords: Industrial Symbiosis, Circular Economy, Sustainable Development, Anaerobic Digestion, Biogas, SimaPro®.
References:
ISPRA, “Rapporto Rifiuti Urbani”, Italy, 2017.
A.V., Saraceni, L. M., Resende, P. P., de Andrade Júnior, J. Pontes, “Pilot testing model to uncover industrial symbiosis in Brazilian industrial clusters”, Int. J. of LCA, 24 (12) (2017), pp 11618–11629.
E.J. Prosman, B.V. Waehrens, G. Liotta, “Closing global material loops: initial insights into firm-level challenges”, J. Ind. Ecol., 21 (3) (2017), pp. 641-650.
M.B., Yovana, D. Iritani, L.R., Pavan, A.R., Ometto, “Theoretical contribution of industrial ecology to circular economy”, J. Cle. Prod., 170, (2018), pp. 1514-1522.
5c. Circular economy, zero waste & innovation
