Page 142 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

ecuador’s banana sector under climate change: an economic and biophysical assessment to promote a sustainable and climate-compatible strategy
(Eitner et al., 2012) and 100 kg CO2eq/tonne of banana (Lescot, 2012), where values were directly taken from databases without being modified for national conditions.
3.3.2 Consumption
The significant contribution to GHG gas emissions relating to the consumption of the banana has not been included in previous studies, except in the case of Svanes (2012), where it is indicated as not significant (6.5 percent; Svanes II in Figure 42).
In this study, the landfill of the banana peel (Figure 44) is a key component of GHG emissions, at 66 percent of total carbon footprint. In absolute terms, this represents 0.16 tonne CO2eq/tonne of bananas, much higher than the value reported by Svanes (2012) relating to Norwegian conditions (0.034 tonne CO2eq/ tonne of bananas). Another key GHG emissions component is the production of toilet paper, used upon human excretion of the banana after ingestion (6.65 kg CO2eq/kg, which is rather high). This value, however, should be taken lightly in view of the fact that the data was not included in the EcoInvent database and was extracted from a different and dated database.
The significance of waste generation is reflected by the relevance of waste management and the contribution of consumption to the entire value chain.
For more evidence, Figure 45 illustrates the different amounts of waste that is generated along the banana value chain. It shows that one tonne of fruit in the hands of the consumer generates 1.07 tonne of waste (upstream) and 0.4 tonne (downstream), totalling 1.47 tonne.
Svanes (2012) indicated the significance of waste generation along the value chain, although the main sources varied. His study reflects a loss of up to 26.3 percent at the retailer stage, whereas this study only reflects a loss of 2.24 percent
Figure 44
Distribution of the various elements considered at stage the consumption stage
0,25
0,20
0,15
0,10
0,05
0,00
0,24
0,04 0,04
0,16
Consumption
Peel waste landfilling Electricity
Waste transport
Toilet use for excreta Direct emissions Peelwaste incineration WWTP
tonne CO2eq/tonne banana
Source: Authors’ calculations
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