Life cycle assessment analysis of empty oil palm fruit bunches waste from palm oil mill activities

Abstract

The process of utilizing existing empty oil palm fruit bunches is a process of utilization commonly carried out in various oil palm plantation industries. Palm oil liquid and solid waste is an environmental burden that produces global warming potential (GWP) emissions. This study aims to determine the magnitude of the environmental impact of using empty fruit bunches. The method used in this study is the ISO 14040 life cycle assessment (LCA) CML-Baseline IA method. The results showed that the existing use of empty fruit bunches in the plantation and the furnace showed that the furnace’s global warming potential impact value was much higher than that of the plantation, which was 234.719 kg CO2 eq and 234.689 kg CO2 eq, respectively. The eutrophication impact is 0.951 kg PO4 eq for furnace and plantation and an acidification effect of 0.525 kg SO2 eq and 0.523 kg SO2 eq. This concluded that they reduced the most dominant environmental impact by reducing raw materials by up to 80% of empty fruit bunches, which can be processed into co-composting and other technologies.