3.5. Life cycle impact assessment
As can be seen from Fig. 3, the drying process is the aspect of the
proposed action plan with the greatest environmental impact.
Thus, this stage is responsible for more than 80% of the potential
impact on climate change and abiotic resource depletion, 50% of
human toxicity and about 60% of eutrophication and water depletion.
The transportation and homogenisation processes have the
second and third highest environmental impacts.
However, as this is a recovery treatment in which a raw material
is obtained, it is necessary to take into account the products
that do not need to be manufactured. In this case, the vegetable
meal obtained is very similar to oatmeal; therefore the overall
analysis must take this ‘‘avoided production” into account as a
positive impact.