Recycling sludge in agriculture? Assessing sustainability of nutrient recovery in Italy

G Tassinari, S Boccaletti and C Soregaroli

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2023, vol. 50, issue 5, 1633-1658

Abstract: Using a hybrid multi-regional input–output approach, we traced sustainability footprints of a nutrient recovery strategy from sewage sludge applied in Italy. We then compared the results with the most common landfilling practice. Overall, accounting for indirect global upstream effects, using sewage sludge for organic fertiliser production generates more jobs and reduces more greenhouse gas emissions than landfilling. By contrast, landfilling stimulates the whole economy more, generating higher indirect turnover and reduces energy carrier use more. Finally, we accounted for uncertainties in these results using an error propagation method based on Monte Carlo simulations.

Keywords: life cycle; wastewater; circular bioeconomy; bio-based system; supply chain shock (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/erae/jbad035 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:erevae:v:50:y:2023:i:5:p:1633-1658.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

European Review of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Timothy Richards, Salvatore Di Falco, Céline Nauges and Vincenzina Caputo

More articles in European Review of Agricultural Economics from Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().