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Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry and palm oil mills in Thailand
Accepted Manuscript Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry and palm oil mills in Thailand Charongpun Musikavong, Shabbir H. Gheewala PII:
S0959-6526(16)31265-3
DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.117
Reference:
JCLP 7909
To appear in:
Journal of Cleaner Production
Received Date: 15 January 2016 Revised Date:
21 August 2016
Accepted Date: 23 August 2016
Please cite this article as: Musikavong C, Gheewala SH, Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry and palm oil mills in Thailand, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.117. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
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Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry
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and palm oil mills in Thailand
Charongpun Musikavonga* and Shabbir H. Gheewalab,c
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, 90112, Thailand
b
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi,
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a
Bangkok, 10140, Thailand
Centre of Excellence on Energy Technology and Environment, PERDO, Bangkok, Thailand
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c
Corresponding author Tel.:+66-7428-7112, Fax: +66-7428-7112
*E-mail address: [email protected] and [email protected]
Abstract
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Rubber and crude palm oil (CPO) are the major agricultural products of Thailand. This work aimed at evaluating the ecological footprint (EF) of ribbed smoked sheet (RSS) from cooperative rubber sheet factories, ribbed smoked sheet bale (RSSB) from large rubber sheet
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factories, Standard Thai Rubber (STR) from block rubber factories, concentrated latex from concentrated latex factories, and CPO of palm oil mills in Thailand. The system boundary of
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cradle to gate was set according to the life cycle assessment approach. The fresh latex and cup lump from rubber plantations and fresh fruit bunch from the oil palm plantations were the major inputs for the rubber factory and the palm oil mill, respectively. EFs of the selected products from high to low were STR 20 at 7.06 global hectares (gha)/tonne, RSSB at 6.87 gha/tonne, RSS at 6.78 gha/tonne, STR 5 at 6.68 gha/tonne, concentrated latex at 5.07 gha/tonne, and CPO at 4.34 gha/tonne, on average. The EF of forest for production of fresh latex, cup lump and
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unsmoked sheet, and fresh fruit bunch accounted for more than 92% of the total EF. The EF for processing was quite less for the products of both rubber factories and palm oil mills. The production of RSS had a high potential for reducing the EF, followed by that of concentrated
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latex and STR, respectively. In 2015, the total EF for the production of rubber products and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 and 30.5 million gha for the average and best observed scenarios,
respectively. The alternative methods for reduction of EF should be emphasized. The policy
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makers should include the EF values as the indicator for supporting the expansion of rubber and
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oil palm industries.
Keywords: block rubber; concentrated latex; crude palm oil; palm oil mills; ribbed smoked sheet;
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Standard Thai Rubber
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Highlight - EFs of RSS, RSSB, concentrated latex, STR, and CPO in Thailand were determined. - The main source of EF was EF of forest for fresh latex and FFB acquisition.
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- The production of CPO and RSS had a high potential to reduce the EF.
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- In 2015, the total EF of rubber products and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 million gha.
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1. Introduction Natural rubber and oil palm products are global commodities. In 2013, 3.86 million tonne of natural rubber was produced in Thailand. In year 2014, 12.5 million tonne of fresh
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fruit bunches (FFB) was produced in Thailand. The production of natural rubber in Thailand accounted for 32% of total production in the world, whereas FFB accounted for 5% (FAO, 2016). About 69% of the total area of rubber plantations is located in southern Thailand. For
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the oil palm, approximately 86 and 6% of the plantation areas, respectively, are located in southern and eastern Thailand (OAE, 2016a). The rubber manufacturing facilities and palm
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oil mills are therefore mostly located in southern Thailand.
The rubber value chain consists of three major stages. The first stage is the rubber cultivation. The second stage is the production of primary products such as ribbed smoked sheet (RSS), block rubber (Standard Thai Rubber, STR), and concentrated latex. The final stage is the production of final rubber products such as gloves, condoms, belts, soles, vehicle
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tires, and industrial rubber parts (Jawjit et al., 2010). For the palm oil industry, the life cycle chain is composed of five major sections: (1) oil palm cultivation; (2) crude palm oil (CPO)
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extraction at the palm oil mill; (3) refinery of edible oil; (4) biodiesel production (Silalertruksa and Gheewala, 2012).
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In 2015, Thailand exported 4.09 million tonne of natural rubber valued at 5,662 million USD. The major exported products from natural rubber in Thailand were block rubber, concentrated latex (as dry rubber content), RSS, and compounded rubber at 1.82, 1.07, 0.66, and 0.44 million tonne, respectively with export values of 2670, 1155, 1040, and 687 million USD. For the vegetable oils, Thailand exported 0.249 million tonne of vegetable oils valued at 291 million USD. Most of the exported quantity and value has been dominated by palm oil at 0.131 million tonne and 114 million USD (OAE, 2016b). The rubber and palm oil industries, therefore, are the most important economic sectors in Thailand.
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The natural rubber and palm oil industries have been expanding due to the increasing demand for their products and economic growth. From 1993 to 2013, the quanity of natural rubber in Thailand has increased from 1.81 to 3.86 million tonne, whereas FFB has increased
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from 1.83 to 12.5 million tonne from 1993 to 2014 (FAO, 2016). The rubber factories and palm oil mills, therefore, have been continuously expanded to satisfy the growing of their feedstock. This expansion consequently requires more land, not only for cultivation and
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milling, but also to provide resources and to absorb emissions.
Ecological Footprint (EF) is an indicator used to represent the total land and water
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ecosystem requirements for providing resources and absorbing emissions in the unit of global hectare (gha) per functional unit of products (Rees, 2013). “The average maximum number of individuals of a given species that can occupy a particular habitat without permanently impairing the productive capacity of that habitat” is the meaning of the term carrying capacity (GFN, 2015). The ratio of EF and carrying capacity can be used to demonstrate the
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stress on resource use (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). In considering the EF of products, the specific EFs of 2630 products and services
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were determined by Huijbregts et al. (2008). Limnios et al. (2009) adjusted the accounting methodology for determination of EF of products. The EF of biofuels and fuels have been
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determined by Stoeglehner and Narodoslawsky (2009) and Chavez-Rodriguez and Nebra (2010), respectively. The EF analysis has also been applied for the construction of residential building (Solis-Guzman et al., 2013) and cement manufacturing processes (Mikulcic et al., 2016). The EF of food consumption and waste in China were determined by Song et al., (2015). The EF of product and co-products of rubber and oil palm plantations were evaluated in the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a). Borucke and colleagues (2013) used the EF and biocapacity (BC) concept to evaluate the National Footprint Accounts of all countries. The analysis of environmental implication
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of the urbanization and lifestyle change in China were also determined by applying the EF methodology (Hubacek et al., 2009). The EF per capita and the BC of Thailand in 2012 were 2.7 gha and 1.2 gha, respectively. A biocapacity deficit of 1.4 was determined. The carbon
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footprint component was the main source that caused the unbalance between the EF and the BC in Thailand (GFN, 2016). It is inevitable for Thailand to use resources from other countries to satisfy the current lifestyle of the population in the country.
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Even though the natural rubber and palm oil industries can provide a high income, however, along the life cycle chain from the plantation to the production of final products,
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many kinds of natural resources are required for providing resources and absorbing emissions. The EFs of rubber and oil palm products have never been determined. To support the sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the EFs of rubber and oil palm products need to be investigated. Hotspots of EF sources must be determined. This information could be used to analyze the EF reduction for rubber and palm oil industries. In
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the final stage, EF values and the methodology of EF reduction can be used to support the development of policy for the expansion of rubber and palm oil industries and for reducing
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the EF of the country to get close to the balance between EF and BC of Thailand.
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2. Material and methods
2.1 Goal and system boundary Our work aimed at determining the EFs of RSS from the cooperative rubber sheet factories, RSSB from the large rubber sheet factories, block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) from block rubber factories, concentrated latex from concentrated latex factories and their coproducts. It also aimed at investigating the EFs of CPO as the main product and shells and palm kernel (PK) as the co-products of palm oil mills in Thailand. In addition, the hotspots of
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EFs and the recommendation for the reduction of EF were determined and discussed in the present work. The system boundary of EF evaluation was set as cradle to gate. Functional units (FU) were defined as 1 tonne of RSS and RSSB for the cooperative and large rubber
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sheet factories, respectively. For the block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) and concentrated latex, FUs were 1 tonne STR 5, STR 20 and concentrated latex, respectively. For the palm oil
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mills, the FU was set at 1 tonne of CPO.
2.2 Data collection
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The calculation of EFs of products from the rubber and palm oil industries consists of two major sections: (1) the rubber and oil palm plantations; and (2) the rubber factories and palm oil mills. This present work used the EFs of products from rubber cultivation including fresh latex, hevea wood and hevea branches and EF of FFB from the oil palm cultivation from the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a).
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For the rubber factories and palm oil mills, this work utilized the life cycle inventory (LCI) data and other information from the previous studies to calculate the EF. For RSS and
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RSSB production, the LCI data were obtained from a study by Musikavong and Gheewala (2016b). In this study, 14 cooperative rubber sheet factories and 2 large rubber sheet factories
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in southern Thailand participated in the research. The cooperative rubber sheet factories were located in Chumphon, Nakornsithammarat, Suratthani, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Krabi, Phangnga, and Satun. The large rubber sheet factories were located in Trang and Songkhla. In the case of STR 5 and STR 20 (block rubber), the LCI and other data from the
National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC, 2014) and Rattanaboon (2014) were used in the calculation. All 4 factories of STR 5 and 2 factories of STR 20 are located in Songkhla province in southern Thailand. For the concentrated latex, the LCI data and other information were obtained from studies by MTEC (MTEC, 2014) and Jantara (2014). All 6
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concentrated latex factories that participated in this research are located in Songkhla province. LCI data and other information of the palm oil mills were obtained from studies by
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MTEC (MTEC, 2014) and Suttayakal et al. (2016). There were 6 palm oil mills participating in the research located in Chumphon, Suratthani, and Krabi in southern Thailand and
Chonburi in eastern Thailand. After reviewing the existing LCI literature, some more data
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requirements were identified to fulfill the calculation of EFs. Therefore, we directly contacted
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and visited the factories to collect more data based on life cycle assessment approach.
2.3 Production process
The production process of RSS from the cooperative rubber sheet factory is presented in Fig.1a. Fresh latex from plantation is the main input to the production process which consists of filtration, casting in spilt box, washing and rolling, drying, and smoking. The main
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product of the cooperative rubber sheet factory from 3.31 tonne of fresh latex input is one tonne of RSS, and the co-products are scrap rubber (0.01 t), bubbled latex (0.08 t), and rubber
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cutting (0.03 t). The wastewater from the process is treated by stabilization ponds system. The treated wastewater is stored in the pond. The characteristics of raw and treated
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wastewater are presented in Table S1. For the large rubber sheet factories (Fig. 1b.), the unsmoked sheet from cultivators (0.84 t) and RSS (0.2 t) from the cooperative rubber sheet factory are the main inputs. The unsmoked sheet goes through washing and smoking process to obtain RSS. The RSS from the production process and the cooperative rubber sheet factory are weighed and packed to produce one tonne of RSSB as the only product (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016b). Fresh latex from cultivators of is the main input in the production of STR 5 (block rubber), about 3.10 tonne being required for producing 1 tonne of STR 5 (Fig. 2a). Fresh
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latex goes through the following production processes: (1) acid forming; (2) pressing and crushing; (3) cleaning, rolling and shredding; (4) drying; and (5) pressing and packing (MTEC, 2014). Several types of wastewater treatment such as activated sludge, upflow
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anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB), and aerated lagoon are used to treat the wastewater from the STR 5 factories. After treatment, the treated wastewater is stored in a retention pond
(Rattanaboon, 2014). STR 5 is the main product and scrap rubber is the co-product, 0.03
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tonne being produced per tonne STR 5.
The production process of STR 20 (block rubber) is presented in Fig.2b. The cup
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lump of 1.18 tonne and unsmoked sheet of 0.37 tonne from plantation are main inputs for producing a tonne of STR 20 along with 0.24 tonne of scrap rubber (co-product). The production process consists of pre-breaker, circulating, shredder and creper, cutting and mixing, circulating, shredder and creper, drying, and compactor. The stabilization pond system was used to treat the wastewater. The characteristics of raw and treated wastewater of
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STR are presented in Table S1 (Rattanaboon, 2014). 2.46 tonne of fresh latex goes to the centrifugation process to get the one tonne of
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concentrated latex (dry rubber content, DRC, 60%) and 0.07 tonne of skim latex (DRC, 515%). Then, the skim latex is brought to the acid forming process to produce the skim crepe
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(Fig.2c.) (Pollution Control Department, PCD, 2005). The wastewater from the process is collected and treated by activated sludge, UASB, and stabilization pond systems. The treated wastewater is stored in a retention pond (Jantara, 2014). The production process of palm oil mills is presented in Fig.3. The FFB from the
plantation is the main input. There are five major sections for the palm oil mill: (1) primary production; (2) oil room; (3) dry section; (4) wastewater treatment system; and (5) utility. The CPO production process consists of sterilization of FFB, fruit separation, digestion, oil
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extraction and oil purification. One tonne of CPO is the main product from 5.49 tonne of FFB; 0.33 tonne shells and 0.27 tonne PK are the co-products (Suttayakul et al, 2016). A large amount of water is used in the sterilization process which results in a large
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amount of palm oil mill effluent (POME) with high organic content. The quantity of POME and characteristics of POME and effluent water from the final pond of each mill were
obtained from study of Suttayakul (2014) and Suttayakul et al. (2016). The COD reduction
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efficiencies of the open pond for cooling, the biogas capture system, and the stabilization pond system were obtained from the study of Kaewmai et al. (2013) and were employed for
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calculating COD of influent to biogas and effluent from biogas system (Table S2). The COD of POME which ranges between 60000 and 120000 mg/L is treated by the open pond system. The COD of effluent water from open pond (as influent water to biogas system) ranged from 44000 to 87000 mg/L. After the biogas system, the COD of effluent water (as influent water to stabilization pond) ranged from 7500 to 12300 mg/L and flowed to
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the stabilization pond system. The treated wastewater in the final pond of the stabilization pond system ranged from1200 to 4,800 mg/L. The treated POME is utilized for oil palm
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cultivation (Kaewmai et al., 2012; Kaewmai et al., 2013, and Suttayakul et al., 2016). These
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COD values were used in calculation of EF.
2.4 EFs calculation
The flow chart of EF calculation for products of rubber factories and palm oil mills is
shown in Fig.4. The methodologies developed by Rees and Wackernagel (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996; 1997) and Chamber (2000) were used to evaluate the EFs of the products from rubber factories and palm oil mills. In addition, the proposed methodology for determination of EF of products based on life cycle assessment by Huijbregts et al., (2008) was applied for calculation of EF in this study. For EF calculation, the LCI is classified into seven categories:
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(1) built up land; (2) wastewater; (3) chemicals; (4) water; (5) electricity; (6) fuel including transport of raw material and input and process use; and (7) raw material from plantation. The EF of products from factories originated from three categories including built up
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land, forest, and energy. The built up land is defined as “land where productive capacity has been largely lost by development such as roads, building, and so on”. The forested land refers to “farmed or natural forests that can yield timber products. Of course, they secure many
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other functions too, such as erosion prevention, climate stability, and climate stability, maintenance of hydrological cycles, and if they are managed properly, biodiversity
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protection”. The energy land is defined as “the land that would be needed to sustainably manage our energy demand”. (Chambers et al., 2000)
The amount of built up land was converted to EF of built up land as presented in Eq. (1).
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EFbuilt up land = S × ep
(1)
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Where EF built up land is EF of built up land utilization (global (gha) hectare/year), S is the surface area consumed (ha/year) and ep is equivalence factor of built up land (Table S3).
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It was assumed that the built up lands for the rubber factories and palm oil mill were used for the next 20 years. Then, production and wastewater treatment technologies must be changed. For the calculation of EF of built up land, the amount of built up in the unit of gha was divided by the amount of output for 20 years. A biological productive hectare to world average biological productivity for given year is the definition of gha. Different land types lead to different productivities (WFN, 2016). The productive land category is divided into cropland, pastures, forest, productive sea, and built land (WWF, 2010)
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Wastewater and chemicals were converted to carbon dioxide emission which was further converted to carbon dioxide land and EF of forest respectively. The annual rate of forest capacity for sequestering the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission of 0.73 tonne
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carbon per ha per year was determined by using the value from the study of Mancini et al. (2015). The oceanic uptake for the year 2010 of 28% was employed in the calculation
(Borucke et al., 2013; Lazarus et al., 2014). The EF of CO2 emission from chemicals is
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calculated by the equation presented elsewhere (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The EF
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of GHG emissions from wastewater is calculated by using Eq. (2) as shown in the following.
EFCO2 = ∑ Cwi ×0.266 ×ef
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Where Cwi is GHG emissions from wastewater treatment plant in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO2eq), 0.266 is area (in hectares/year) required for sequestering a
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tonne of CO2 and ef is the equivalence factor of forest (Table S3). The GHG emissions from the wastewater treatment plant were taken into account in
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the EF calculation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) methodology was used to evaluate the GHG emissions from the wastewater
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treatment plants (UNFCCC, 2010). The quantity of wastewater and COD values were used in the calculation of GHG emissions. The RSS factory uses a stabilization pond system for treating its wastewater. A methane correction factor of 0.3 was used because the stabilization pond was not well managed. In the case of RSSB factory, the GHG emissions from the wastewater treatment were not counted because a very small amount of wastewater was generated from the process. For the block rubber and concentrated latex factories, only the factories that utilized the anaerobic process were included in the determination of the GHG emissions. However, as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) values of the wastewater from
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each factory were available, the ratio between COD and BOD of 1.80 (DIW, 2003) was used to estimate the COD from the BOD values which was then used for the calculation of GHG emissions.
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For the palm oil mills, the quantity of wastewater and COD of wastewater (POME) into open pond, influent water to biogas capture system, influent water to stabilization pond and effluent water from final pond were used in the calculation of GHG emissions.
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The amount of water used in rubber factories and mills was converted to the EF of forest land. The EF of forest for generating water reported by Quesada (2007) was used in the
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calculation (Table S4). The amount of electricity and fuel used were converted to EF of energy. The EF of water, electricity, and fuel was calculated by the equation presented elsewhere (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a)
For the EFraw material, the main input is fresh latex and cup lump and unsmoked sheet for rubber factories, whereas that of palm oil mill is FFB. EFs of raw materials were the sum
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of the EFs of cropland, forest, energy, and built up land obtained from the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a). In this previous work, the EF of cropland is defined as
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the direct land occupation for rubber and oil palm cultivation. The EF of forest is the indirect land occupation for sequestrating CO2 emission and producing water for rubber and oil palm
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cultivation. The EF was allocated to fresh latex, hevea wood, and hevea branches by economic values.
After the area in ha of each category of EF was determined, then, the units were
converted to gha by using the equivalence factors from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, 2010) as tabulated in Table S3. The total EF of products was the sum of the EF in factories and EF of input. The EF was allocated between the main product and co-products by economic values as presented in Table S5.
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3. Results and discussion
3.1 EF of RSS and RSSB
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The RSS and RSSB are used as the input for producing vehicle tires, and industrial rubber parts (Jawjit et al., 2010). The EF of RSS is presented in Table 1. For the southeastern provinces, forest and cropland with average values EF of 6.21 and 0.163 gha/tonne RSS,
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respectively, were the major sources of the total EF. The EF of forest of 7.12 gha/tonne RSS and cropland of 0.180 gha/tonne RSS of the rubber plantation were the major sources of total
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EF of RSS production in the southwestern provinces. A low contribution of the EF of energy and built up land were determined for the production of RSS. The EF of forest for the fresh latex acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of RSS, on average (Table S6). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the acquisition of fresh latex.
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The EF of fresh latex acquisition mainly came from the use of rainwater and irrigation in the cultivation (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The water use in the plantation,
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therefore, is the dominant natural resource for the RSS production. In considering only the production process (Table S6), the main EF of the RSS production originated from the fuel
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used. The minimum, maximum, and average amounts of EF of fuel were 0.014, 0.037, and 0.025 gha/tonne RSS, respectively. The average amount of EF for producing one tonne of RSS in southeastern provinces
was 6.41 gha, whereas that of southwestern provinces was 7.33 gha. The production of a tonne RSS in the southwestern provinces required 0.92 gha higher than the southeastern provinces. This is because producing RSS in southwestern provinces required higher amount of forest resources for providing rain water and sequestering CO2 from the production and
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use of fertilizers as compared the southeastern provinces (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). When the economic values were used to share the EF between product and co-
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products, RSS worked out to 6.78 gha/tonne (Table 1). The bubbled latex had the greatest EF value among the co-products at 6.37 gha/tonne, followed by rubber cutting at 5.99 gha/tonne, and scrap rubber at 3.10 gha/tonne (Table S7).
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In the case of RSSB (Table 1), the EF of forest of 6.69 gha/tonne RSSB and cropland of 0.176 gha/tonne RSSB at the rubber plantation were the major sources of total EF in the
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southeastern provinces. For the southwestern provinces, the average values of EF of forest and cropland were similarly 6.66 and 0.176 gha/tonne RSSB, respectively. EFs of energy and built up land were quite less for the RSSB production. From the breakdown in Table S8, it can be seen that the EFs of forest for the unsmoked sheet and RSS acquisition contributed 77 and 20% of total EF of RSSB, on average. This is because a high amount of rainwater and
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irrigation water was required in production of unsmoked sheet and RSS. Consequently, a large amount of forest area was required for producing water. The EF value of the production
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process was found to be very small in comparison to the acquisition of raw materials. The production of RSSB in southeastern and southwestern Thailand utilized the same amount of
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resources.
3.2 EF of block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) and scrap rubber The block rubber is used for producing belts, soles, and others products (Jawjit et al.,
2010). In 2015, Thailand exported 1.77 million tonne of block rubber. The major product is STR 20 with the exported quantity of 1.61 million tonne (91% of total exported quantity whereas STR 5 was a modest 4,159 tonne (Rubber Research Institute of Thailand, RRIT, 2016).
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The average values of EF of forest, cropland, and energy for producing one tonne of STR 5 were 6.45, 0.169, and 0.064 gha, respectively. The EF of forest was the major source of EF of STR 5. The EF of built up land was found to be very less (Table 2). On average, the
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EF of forest accounted for 95% of total EF from the fresh latex acquisition for STR 5 (Table S9). The EF value of the production process was found to be very small in comparison to the acquisition of fresh latex. Considering only the production process, the main EF source was
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fuels and chemical use. This is because fuel was inevitably required for transportation of fresh latex and other inputs, and several types of chemicals were employed in the production
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of STR 5.
When the economic value was used to share the EF between product and co-products, the average EF value of STR 5 in Thailand of 6.68 gha/tonne was obtained (Table 2). The scrap rubber as the co-product had an average EF of 3.01 gha/tonne (Table S10).The lowest and highest values of EF of STR 5 were 6.59 and 7.13 gha/tonne, respectively. Considering
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the production process, the factories that had a high value of EF of STR 5 used high amount of fresh latex per tonne STR 5 in comparison to that of other factories. The high amount of
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fresh latex used resulted in the high amount of EF. For the STR 20 production, forest, cropland, and energy with average values EF of
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6.83, 0.178, and 0.044 gha/tonne STR 20, respectively, were the major sources of total EF. The EF of built up land was found to be very less (Table 2). The EF of forest for the cup lump and unsmoked sheet acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of STR 20, on average (Table S11). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the acquisition of cup lump and unsmoked sheet. Considering only the production process, the main EF source was wastewater and water use. This is because the production process required high amount of water in the circulating tank and discharged high amount of wastewater to the wastewater treatment plant.
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When economic values were used to share the EF between product and co-products, the average EF value of STR 20 in Thailand worked out to 7.06 gha/tonne (Table 2). The scrap rubber as the co-product had an average EF of 3.86 gha/tonne (Table S12). The lowest
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and highest values of EF of STR 20 were 6.78 and 7.95 gha/tonne, respectively. The EF high value of STR 20 in the factory resulted from the high use of cup lump and unsmoked sheet per tonne of product.
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The production of a tonne STR 20 required 0.38 gha higher than that of STR 5. This is because producing STR 20 required slightly higher amount of forest resources for producing
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cup lump and unsmoked sheet in comparison to that for fresh latex for producing STR 5. The EF values of scrap rubber in the production of RSS and STR ranged from 3.01 to 3.86 gha/tonne scrap rubber.
3.3 EF of concentrated latex and scrap rubber
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Concentrated latex is used for producing the medical gloves, condoms, and other products (Jawjit et al., 2010). The EF of concentrated latex is tabulated in Table 3. The lowest
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values of EF of forest and cropland were 4.23 and 0.111 gha/tonne concentrated latex, respectively. The highest EF of forest of 7.21 gha/tonne concentrated latex and cropland of
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0.189 gha/tonne concentrated latex were obtained. The major contribution of EF of concentrated latex was from the EF of forest. A high amount of fresh latex per tonne concentrated latex was used in the factory producing the concentrated latex with a high EF value. The EF of energy and built up land contributed relatively less to the production of concentrated latex. EF of forest for the fresh latex acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of concentrated latex, on average (Table S13). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the fresh latex acquisition.
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The main EF of the concentrated latex production came from the wastewater treatment system (Table S13). The minimum, maximum, and average amounts of EF of wastewater treatment system were 0.008, 0.075, and 0.038 gha/tonne concentrated latex,
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respectively. The factories that had no EF from the wastewater used the activated sludge process with good management. Therefore, there were no methane emissions from the
wastewater treatment system. However, the use of UASB for the treating wastewater could
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generate methane in terms of fugitive emissions, flaring of biogas, and stabilization pond system. This emitted methane in term of carbon dioxide equivalent from the wastewater
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treatment system must be sequestered by forest area. The EF of concentrated latex in Thailand was 5.07 gha/tonne (Table 3), on average. The skim crepe as the co-product had an EF value of 3.79 gha/tonne (Table S14).
3.4 EF of CPO, shells, and palm kernel
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CPO is used as the input for the refinery of edible oil and biodiesel (Silalertruksa and Gheewala, 2012). For the eastern provinces, the average values of EF of forest, energy
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and cropland were 4.97, 0.170, and 0.099 gha/tonne CPO, respectively (Table 4). The EFs of forest, cropland and energy for the southeastern provinces were on average 3.92, 0.092 and
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0.025 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. For the southwestern provinces, the EFs of forest, energy and cropland were 3.92, 0.095, and 0.088 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. EFs of build up land were quite less. The breakdown EF of CPO production is presented in Table S15. EF of forest for FFB acquisition accounted for 92% of total EF of CPO, on average. The production of CPO in the eastern provinces had the highest EF of 5.24 gha/tonne CPO. The production of one tonne CPO in the southeastern and southwestern provinces required 4.10 gha/tonne for resources, on average. The production of one tonne CPO in the eastern provinces required 1.14 gha higher than the southeastern and
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southwestern provinces. Producing CPO in the eastern provinces required a high amount of forest resources of 25 % as compared to the southeastern and southwestern provinces. The main contribution of forest resource for producing CPO came from the forest resource of FFB
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acquisition (Table S14). The EF of FFB acquisition mainly originated from the rainwater and irrigation water use in the cultivation. The FFB acquisition in the eastern provinces required three and eight time more irrigation water when compared to the southeastern and
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southwestern provinces, respectively (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The water use in the plantation is an important natural resource for the CPO production.
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The main EF of the CPO production originated from the wastewater treatment system (Table S15). The lowest, average, and greatest amounts of EF of wastewater were 0.118, 0.160, and 0.230 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. The POME had a COD between 53,000 and 125,000 mg/L (Keawmai et al., 2013). The palm oil mills used the open pond, biogas capture system, and stabilization ponds. The open pond was used for cooling the wastewater.
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The biogas capture system was the anaerobic digestion tank that converted the organic matter to methane and carbon dioxide as the biogas. The biogas was used to produce electricity by
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the gas engine. The treated wastewater from the biogas capture system was further treated by stabilization ponds (Keawmai et al., 2013). The methane could be directly emitted from the
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open pond and stabilization pond. For the biogas capture system, the fugitive emissions and flaring could release the methane to the atmosphere in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent which must then be sequestered by the forest area. The difference in the operation of the mill and the design of wastewater treatment plant could lead to the variation of methane emissions which resulted in the difference in EF of wastewater treatment. The average EF of 4.34 gha/tonne was obtained for CPO in Thailand (Table 4). Shells are used as the biomass fuel whereas the PK is used to produce palm kernel oil and palm kernel meal (Keawmai et al., 2012). The shell and PK had EF values of 1.82 and 0.33 gha/tonne, respectively (Table S16).
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3.5 EF of products from rubber and palm oil industries in Thailand and recommendation for policy makers The production of STR 20 consumed the greatest amount of resources followed by the
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RSSB, RSS, STR 5, and concentrated latex (dry rubber content, 60%), respectively. As previously described, the main input for RSSB production is unsmoked sheet and RSS. The EF of RSS was considered for calculating the resources consumed for Thailand instead of
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RSSB.
In considering the average value in the LCI data of rubber industries, the production
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of concentrated latex used the highest amount of input in terms of dry rubber followed by RSS, STR 20, and STR 5, respectively, on average. In production of concentrated latex, fresh latex loss could occur at many sections leading to high fresh latex requirement. The production of RSS, STR 20, and STR 5 used comparable inputs in terms of dry rubber. To promote the sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the land
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and water ecosystem requirements for providing resources and absorbing emissions for these industries need to be reduced. The EF of rubber and palm oil products are from two sources:
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(1) fresh latex and FFB acquisition; and (2) processing. However, the major EF source for the RSS, RSSB, STR 5, and concentrated latex, STR 20, and CPO were the fresh latex, cup lump
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and unsmoked sheet, and FFB acquisition, respectively contributing more than 92% of total EF. The program actions to reduce the EF of these products, therefore, should focus on the acquisition of inputs from the plantation as the first priority, followed by the reduction of EF from processing.
For the reduction of EF of the rubber cultivation in Thailand, in general the government provides cost subsidies to cultivators who plan new rubber trees in that were previously used as rubber plantations (Rubber Authority of Thailand, 2016). These cost subsidies should be set according to the EF value. High subsidies should be provided for
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growing new rubber trees in areas requiring low EF for cultivation. Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a) proposed that the reduction of EF of the plantation should be emphasized by growing of rubber and oil palm with high yield. The amount of organic fertilizers and
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pesticides should also be reduced. For the processing, the fuel was the major EF source for RSS and STR 5 production. In the case of concentrated latex and CPO production, the wastewater treatment system was
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the major source of EF. For the STR 20, the wastewater treatment system and water use were the main sources of EF. The program action plan for reducing of EF from processing should
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be accomplished by process optimization and the management of wastewater treatment system and water usage. The responsible organizations should employ the alternative options of process optimization as described below for setting policy to reduce EF. The process optimization of RSS production could be facilitated by several options. The stirring and the ratio of fresh latex to water to formic acid have to be carefully controlled
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to obtain high amount of RSS rather than bubbled latex. To reduce the amount of rubber cutting, the particles in the fresh latex have to be well filtered off. In the casing in split-
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forming boxes, the air bubbled must completely skimmed off. The moisture content of the firewood use in the smoking process should be optimum. The temperature in the oven should
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be controlled within the appropriate range (ORRAF, 2014). In the production of concentrated latex, the loss of fresh latex can occur at 4 sections:
(1) the fresh latex receiving area; (2) the fresh latex receiving tank; (3) the centrifugation process; and (4) the skimming process. For the receiving area, after the fresh latex from cultivators is discharged to the receiving tank, the rubber collation tank in the truck is washed and the remaining fresh latex in this tank is drained to the rubber trap. When the remaining amount of fresh latex in the tank is high, then the percent loss of fresh latex is increased. The receiving tank is cleaned every day after processing is finished and the remaining rubber in
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the tank is discharged into the rubber trap. The rubber in the rubber trap is used for producing skin crepe having a low value in comparison to concentrated latex. The centrifuge is cleaned every two or three hours to avoid clogging. The cleaning process causes the loss of latex. In
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the skimming process if acid forming does not work well, loss can occur (DIW, 2001). For the STR 5, the loss of fresh latex can occur in the receiving tank. In addition, when acid
forming does not work properly, then low productivity is obtained. The loss of fresh latex in
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4 four sections in concentrated latex production and 2 sections in STR 5 production must be monitored, controlled and improved.
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In the case of STR 20, the quality of raw material is very important; the contaminants in cup lump and unsmoked sheet must be removed. Water is used for cleaning raw material in production processes to meet the standard of dirt content. The high amount of water use results in high amount of wastewater. The water use in the production process should be minimized. A water meter should be installed for determining exact amount of water use in
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each process. Then, the water reuse and reduction guideline should be developed and conducted for optimizing amount of water use. The treated wastewater should be recycled
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and used in the production process. In the final stage, the preventive maintenance should be conducted in order to optimize the fuel and electricity use (DIW, 2001).
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For palm oil mills, the oil extraction rate should be increased. When the oil extraction rate is increased, more CPO will be obtained from the same amount of FFB which will result in a lower EF. The oil loss during the production process is an important factor. The oil loss in the extraction process and oil loss to fibers, the decanter cake and wastewater treatment must be monitored and minimized to gain more CPO. There are several heavy machines used in the mill such as a screw press, decanter, separator, empty fruit bunches presser, and cutter. There is a need to ensure that these machines are maintained and operated well to achieve optimum efficiency and they do not break down often. Improvements in operational
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procedures and preventive maintenance should be continuously conducted (DEDE, 2006a, b). These options could help to increase the oil extraction rate value. For the wastewater treatment, there are 4 alternative options for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions: (1) using
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a wastewater dispersed unit to reduce wastewater temperature; (2) upgrading the open pond to a covered pond; (3) enhancing the performance of the biogas system; and (4) changing the stabilization pond to an aerated lagoon. The EF of CPO will be decreased with the reduction
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in greenhouse gas emissions (Keawmai et al., 2013).
The population of Thailand was estimated at 65.7 million as of December 2015
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(DOPA, 2016); the EF was 2.7 gha per capita (GFN, 2016). Thus, the total EF of the country was 177.5 million gha. In 2015, Thailand produced about 0.88 million tonne RSS (RRIT, 2016), the average EF of RSS before allocation was 7.52 gha/tonne. The resources consumed for producing RSS amounted to 6.65 million gha (Fig. 5). The EF before allocation was used in the calculation to represent the total amount of EF from the production. 1.89
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million tonne of STR was produced. The EF before allocation of STR 20 of 7.15 gha/tonne was used in the calculation. The resource used for producing STR amounted to 13.5 million
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gha. Thailand produced about 0.96 million tonne of concentrated latex (The Thai Rubber Association, 2016), with EF before allocation of 5.36 gha/tonne. The resource consumed for
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producing concentrated latex was 5.17 million gha, on average. For CPO, the quantity of FFBs in 2015 was obtained from OAE (2016a). The oil extraction rate of 18.1 percent was used to determine the amount of CPO per year. The average EF of CPO before allocation was 4.97 gha/tonne. The resource used for producing CPO amounted to 9.88 million gha. The EF of RSS, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO accounted for 3.8, 7.6, 2.9, and 5.6 % of the EF of Thailand, respectively. In 2015, the highest value of EF was from STR production (Fig.5). This is because the EF before allocation of STR 20 production was the second highest among
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that of products and the amount of STR production was twice as high as RSS and concentrated latex. The best observed factory or mill is defined as one that produces the product using the
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lowest amount of land and water ecosystem for providing the resources and absorbing emissions in term of gha. The best observed case of RSS, STR 20, concentrated latex, and CPO productions had EFs before allocation of 6.11, 6.89, 4.48, and 3.91 gha/tonne,
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respectively. The resource used for Thailand for producing the RSS, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO were decreased to 3.0% (19% reduction from the average case), 7.3% (3.6%), 2.4%
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(16%), and 4.4% (21%), respectively in this best observed case. The production of CPO has a high potential to reduce the EF. For rubber industry, the production of RSS has a high potential to reduce EF followed by concentrated latex and STR, respectively.
4. Conclusion
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The EFs of RSS, RSSB, STR 5, STR 20, concentrated latex, and CPO in Thailand were determined. The fresh latex and cup lump from the rubber plantation and FFB from the
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oil palm plantation were the major inputs for the rubber factories and the mill, respectively. EFs of the selected products were RSS at 6.78 global hectares (gha)/tonne, RSSB at 6.87
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gha/tonne, STR 20 at 7.06 gha/tonne, STR 5 at 6.68 gha/tonne, concentrated latex at 5.07 gha/tonne, and CPO at 4.34 gha/tonne, on average. The EF of forest for rainwater and irrigation water for production fresh latex and cup lump and FFB accounted for more than 92% of the total EF. The EF for process was quite less for the RSS, RSSB, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO production. The production of RSS had a high potential to reduce the EF, followed by concentrated latex and STR, respectively. In 2015, the sum of EF for the production of RSS, RSSB, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 and 30.5 million gha for the average and best observed scenarios, respectively. To satisfy the
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sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the policy makers should include the EF values as the indicator for supporting the expansion of rubber and oil palm industries. The methodology for reduction of EF in the plantation and processing should be established
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in order to optimize the value of EF.
Acknowledgments
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This research was supported by the National Science and Technology Development Agency under the project “Research Network for LCA and Policy on Food, Fuel, and Climate
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Change”.
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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Table Table 1 Ecological footprint of RSS and RSSB EF (gha/t product) EF of EF of built up land cropland
EF of forest
0.026 0.046 0.038
5.89 6.73 6.21
1.87E-04 3.55E-04 2.12E-04
0.154 0.179 0.163
6.09 6.93 6.41
0.025 0.035 0.030 0.035
6.59 7.66 7.12 6.58
1.57E-04 5.96E-04 3.13E-04 2.53E-04
0.153 0.217 0.180 0.170
6.79 7.88 7.33 6.78
0.016
6.69
7.14E-05
0.176
6.88
0.012 0.013
6.66 6.68
3.23E-05 5.06E-05
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RSS The southeastern provinces Minimum Maximum Averagea The southwestern provinces Minimum Maximum Averagea Total average for Thailand a RSSB The southeastern province Songkhla The southwestern province Trang Averagea a weighted average
Total
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EF of energy
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Regions
0.176 0.176
6.85 6.87
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6.34 6.93 6.45
2.28E-04 1.73E-03 5.12E-04
0.165 0.182 0.169
6.59 7.13 6.68
6.57 7.69 6.83
7.17E-04 7.16E-03 2.25E-03
0.172 0.199 0.178
6.78 7.95 7.06
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STR 5 Minimum 0.021 Maximum 0.093 Averagea 0.064 STR 20 Minimum 0.041 Maximum 0.051 Averagea 0.044 a weighted average
EF of forest
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EF of energy
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Minimum 0.007 Maximum 0.015 Averagea 0.012 a weighted average
4.23 7.21 4.93
EF of CL (gha/t CL) EF of EF of built up land cropland 5.04E-05 6.96E-04 1.24E-04
0.111 0.189 0.129
Total
4.35 7.41 5.07
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EF of energy
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The eastern province Chonburi
EF of CPO (gha/t CPO) EF of EF of built up land cropland
EF of energy
EF of forest
0.170
4.97
5.32E-05
0.099
5.24
3.90 4.24 3.92
6.00E-05 1.09E-05 3.72E-05
0.091 0.098 0.092
4.02 4.36 4.10
3.92 4.17
3.72E-05 5.55E-05
0.088 0.092
4.10 4.34
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The southeastern provinces Chumphon 0.027 Suratthani 0.021 a Average 0.025 The southwestern provinces Krabi 0.095 Averagea 0.081 a weighted average
Total
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Provinces
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Figure Fresh latex 3.31 tonne Scrap rubber 0.01
Chemical
Casting in split forming box
Bubble latex 0.08 tonne
Water
Washing
Electricity
Rolling
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Filtration
Washing Firewood
Drying
Rubber cutting 0.03 tonne
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Smoking
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RSS 1 tonne
Fig. 1a.
USS 0.84 tonne
Water
Washing
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Smoking RSS
Chemical
Weight and packing
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RSS 0.20 tonne
RSSB 1 tonne
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Where Input By product
Process Main product
Direction Waste
Fig. 1b.
Fig.1. System boundary for rubber factories 1a) RSS and 1b) RSSB (the amounts of input, product and co-products were obtained from Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016b)
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Fresh latex 3.10 tonne Receiving dock - Chemical - Water
Acid forming Crusher
Shredder Washing Drying Compactor STR 5 1 tonne
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Fig. 2a.
Scrap rubber 0.03 tonne
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Water
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Creper
Cup lump 1.18 tonne
Pre-breaker
Water
Circulating tank
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Shredder and creper USS 0.37 tonne
Cutting and mixing
- Water - Chemical
Circulating tank
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Shredder and creper Drying Compactor STR 20 1 tonne
Fig. 2b.
Scrap rubber 0.024 tonne
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Fresh latex 2.46 tonne
Preservation
- Electricity - Water
Centrifugation Concentrated latex 1 tonne (DRC 60%)
Skim latex (DRC<5%)
Acid forming
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- Chemical - Water
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Receiving dock
Where Input By product
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Skim crepe 0.07 tonne
Process
Main product
Direction Waste
Fig. 2c.
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Fig.2. System boundary for rubber factories 2a) STR 5 and 2b) STR 20 2C) concentrated latex (the amounts of input, product and co-products for STR5, STR 20, and concentrated latex were obtained from this study and Rattanaboon, 2014; Rattanaboon 2014; and Jantara, 2014, respectively)
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Fresh fruit bunch 5.49 tonne Sterilization Fossil fuel Threshing
Empty fruit bunch
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Chemical Digestion
Electricity
Screw pressing
Water
Setting tank
Decanter cake
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Purifier
Dry section Palm kernel 0.27 tonne
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Oil room Vibrating screen
Dryer
Shell 0.33 tonne
Fiber 0.64 tonne
CPO 1 tonne
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Fig.3. System boundary for palm oil mills (the amounts of input, product and co-products were obtained from Suttayakul et al., 2016)
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Built up land
Wastewater
Chemical
Water
Electricity
Fuel
Raw materials
CO2 land
EF of forest
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Total EF
EF of energy
EF of raw materials
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EF of built up land
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CO2 emissions
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Fig.4 .The flow chart of EF calculation for products of rubber factories and palm oil mills
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12 10
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Ecological footprint (Mgha)
14
8 6 4
0 RSS
STR20
CL
CPO
Best observed case
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Average
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2
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Fig. 5. Ecological footprint of the products of rubber industries and palm oil mills in Thailand
S0959-6526(16)31265-3
DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.117
Reference:
JCLP 7909
To appear in:
Journal of Cleaner Production
Received Date: 15 January 2016 Revised Date:
21 August 2016
Accepted Date: 23 August 2016
Please cite this article as: Musikavong C, Gheewala SH, Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry and palm oil mills in Thailand, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.117. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
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Assessing ecological footprints of products from the rubber industry
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and palm oil mills in Thailand
Charongpun Musikavonga* and Shabbir H. Gheewalab,c
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, 90112, Thailand
b
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi,
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a
Bangkok, 10140, Thailand
Centre of Excellence on Energy Technology and Environment, PERDO, Bangkok, Thailand
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c
Corresponding author Tel.:+66-7428-7112, Fax: +66-7428-7112
*E-mail address: [email protected] and [email protected]
Abstract
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Rubber and crude palm oil (CPO) are the major agricultural products of Thailand. This work aimed at evaluating the ecological footprint (EF) of ribbed smoked sheet (RSS) from cooperative rubber sheet factories, ribbed smoked sheet bale (RSSB) from large rubber sheet
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factories, Standard Thai Rubber (STR) from block rubber factories, concentrated latex from concentrated latex factories, and CPO of palm oil mills in Thailand. The system boundary of
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cradle to gate was set according to the life cycle assessment approach. The fresh latex and cup lump from rubber plantations and fresh fruit bunch from the oil palm plantations were the major inputs for the rubber factory and the palm oil mill, respectively. EFs of the selected products from high to low were STR 20 at 7.06 global hectares (gha)/tonne, RSSB at 6.87 gha/tonne, RSS at 6.78 gha/tonne, STR 5 at 6.68 gha/tonne, concentrated latex at 5.07 gha/tonne, and CPO at 4.34 gha/tonne, on average. The EF of forest for production of fresh latex, cup lump and
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unsmoked sheet, and fresh fruit bunch accounted for more than 92% of the total EF. The EF for processing was quite less for the products of both rubber factories and palm oil mills. The production of RSS had a high potential for reducing the EF, followed by that of concentrated
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latex and STR, respectively. In 2015, the total EF for the production of rubber products and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 and 30.5 million gha for the average and best observed scenarios,
respectively. The alternative methods for reduction of EF should be emphasized. The policy
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makers should include the EF values as the indicator for supporting the expansion of rubber and
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oil palm industries.
Keywords: block rubber; concentrated latex; crude palm oil; palm oil mills; ribbed smoked sheet;
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Standard Thai Rubber
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Highlight - EFs of RSS, RSSB, concentrated latex, STR, and CPO in Thailand were determined. - The main source of EF was EF of forest for fresh latex and FFB acquisition.
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- The production of CPO and RSS had a high potential to reduce the EF.
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- In 2015, the total EF of rubber products and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 million gha.
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1. Introduction Natural rubber and oil palm products are global commodities. In 2013, 3.86 million tonne of natural rubber was produced in Thailand. In year 2014, 12.5 million tonne of fresh
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fruit bunches (FFB) was produced in Thailand. The production of natural rubber in Thailand accounted for 32% of total production in the world, whereas FFB accounted for 5% (FAO, 2016). About 69% of the total area of rubber plantations is located in southern Thailand. For
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the oil palm, approximately 86 and 6% of the plantation areas, respectively, are located in southern and eastern Thailand (OAE, 2016a). The rubber manufacturing facilities and palm
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oil mills are therefore mostly located in southern Thailand.
The rubber value chain consists of three major stages. The first stage is the rubber cultivation. The second stage is the production of primary products such as ribbed smoked sheet (RSS), block rubber (Standard Thai Rubber, STR), and concentrated latex. The final stage is the production of final rubber products such as gloves, condoms, belts, soles, vehicle
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tires, and industrial rubber parts (Jawjit et al., 2010). For the palm oil industry, the life cycle chain is composed of five major sections: (1) oil palm cultivation; (2) crude palm oil (CPO)
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extraction at the palm oil mill; (3) refinery of edible oil; (4) biodiesel production (Silalertruksa and Gheewala, 2012).
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In 2015, Thailand exported 4.09 million tonne of natural rubber valued at 5,662 million USD. The major exported products from natural rubber in Thailand were block rubber, concentrated latex (as dry rubber content), RSS, and compounded rubber at 1.82, 1.07, 0.66, and 0.44 million tonne, respectively with export values of 2670, 1155, 1040, and 687 million USD. For the vegetable oils, Thailand exported 0.249 million tonne of vegetable oils valued at 291 million USD. Most of the exported quantity and value has been dominated by palm oil at 0.131 million tonne and 114 million USD (OAE, 2016b). The rubber and palm oil industries, therefore, are the most important economic sectors in Thailand.
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The natural rubber and palm oil industries have been expanding due to the increasing demand for their products and economic growth. From 1993 to 2013, the quanity of natural rubber in Thailand has increased from 1.81 to 3.86 million tonne, whereas FFB has increased
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from 1.83 to 12.5 million tonne from 1993 to 2014 (FAO, 2016). The rubber factories and palm oil mills, therefore, have been continuously expanded to satisfy the growing of their feedstock. This expansion consequently requires more land, not only for cultivation and
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milling, but also to provide resources and to absorb emissions.
Ecological Footprint (EF) is an indicator used to represent the total land and water
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ecosystem requirements for providing resources and absorbing emissions in the unit of global hectare (gha) per functional unit of products (Rees, 2013). “The average maximum number of individuals of a given species that can occupy a particular habitat without permanently impairing the productive capacity of that habitat” is the meaning of the term carrying capacity (GFN, 2015). The ratio of EF and carrying capacity can be used to demonstrate the
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stress on resource use (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). In considering the EF of products, the specific EFs of 2630 products and services
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were determined by Huijbregts et al. (2008). Limnios et al. (2009) adjusted the accounting methodology for determination of EF of products. The EF of biofuels and fuels have been
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determined by Stoeglehner and Narodoslawsky (2009) and Chavez-Rodriguez and Nebra (2010), respectively. The EF analysis has also been applied for the construction of residential building (Solis-Guzman et al., 2013) and cement manufacturing processes (Mikulcic et al., 2016). The EF of food consumption and waste in China were determined by Song et al., (2015). The EF of product and co-products of rubber and oil palm plantations were evaluated in the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a). Borucke and colleagues (2013) used the EF and biocapacity (BC) concept to evaluate the National Footprint Accounts of all countries. The analysis of environmental implication
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of the urbanization and lifestyle change in China were also determined by applying the EF methodology (Hubacek et al., 2009). The EF per capita and the BC of Thailand in 2012 were 2.7 gha and 1.2 gha, respectively. A biocapacity deficit of 1.4 was determined. The carbon
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footprint component was the main source that caused the unbalance between the EF and the BC in Thailand (GFN, 2016). It is inevitable for Thailand to use resources from other countries to satisfy the current lifestyle of the population in the country.
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Even though the natural rubber and palm oil industries can provide a high income, however, along the life cycle chain from the plantation to the production of final products,
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many kinds of natural resources are required for providing resources and absorbing emissions. The EFs of rubber and oil palm products have never been determined. To support the sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the EFs of rubber and oil palm products need to be investigated. Hotspots of EF sources must be determined. This information could be used to analyze the EF reduction for rubber and palm oil industries. In
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the final stage, EF values and the methodology of EF reduction can be used to support the development of policy for the expansion of rubber and palm oil industries and for reducing
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the EF of the country to get close to the balance between EF and BC of Thailand.
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2. Material and methods
2.1 Goal and system boundary Our work aimed at determining the EFs of RSS from the cooperative rubber sheet factories, RSSB from the large rubber sheet factories, block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) from block rubber factories, concentrated latex from concentrated latex factories and their coproducts. It also aimed at investigating the EFs of CPO as the main product and shells and palm kernel (PK) as the co-products of palm oil mills in Thailand. In addition, the hotspots of
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EFs and the recommendation for the reduction of EF were determined and discussed in the present work. The system boundary of EF evaluation was set as cradle to gate. Functional units (FU) were defined as 1 tonne of RSS and RSSB for the cooperative and large rubber
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sheet factories, respectively. For the block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) and concentrated latex, FUs were 1 tonne STR 5, STR 20 and concentrated latex, respectively. For the palm oil
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mills, the FU was set at 1 tonne of CPO.
2.2 Data collection
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The calculation of EFs of products from the rubber and palm oil industries consists of two major sections: (1) the rubber and oil palm plantations; and (2) the rubber factories and palm oil mills. This present work used the EFs of products from rubber cultivation including fresh latex, hevea wood and hevea branches and EF of FFB from the oil palm cultivation from the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a).
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For the rubber factories and palm oil mills, this work utilized the life cycle inventory (LCI) data and other information from the previous studies to calculate the EF. For RSS and
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RSSB production, the LCI data were obtained from a study by Musikavong and Gheewala (2016b). In this study, 14 cooperative rubber sheet factories and 2 large rubber sheet factories
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in southern Thailand participated in the research. The cooperative rubber sheet factories were located in Chumphon, Nakornsithammarat, Suratthani, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Krabi, Phangnga, and Satun. The large rubber sheet factories were located in Trang and Songkhla. In the case of STR 5 and STR 20 (block rubber), the LCI and other data from the
National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC, 2014) and Rattanaboon (2014) were used in the calculation. All 4 factories of STR 5 and 2 factories of STR 20 are located in Songkhla province in southern Thailand. For the concentrated latex, the LCI data and other information were obtained from studies by MTEC (MTEC, 2014) and Jantara (2014). All 6
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concentrated latex factories that participated in this research are located in Songkhla province. LCI data and other information of the palm oil mills were obtained from studies by
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MTEC (MTEC, 2014) and Suttayakal et al. (2016). There were 6 palm oil mills participating in the research located in Chumphon, Suratthani, and Krabi in southern Thailand and
Chonburi in eastern Thailand. After reviewing the existing LCI literature, some more data
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requirements were identified to fulfill the calculation of EFs. Therefore, we directly contacted
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and visited the factories to collect more data based on life cycle assessment approach.
2.3 Production process
The production process of RSS from the cooperative rubber sheet factory is presented in Fig.1a. Fresh latex from plantation is the main input to the production process which consists of filtration, casting in spilt box, washing and rolling, drying, and smoking. The main
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product of the cooperative rubber sheet factory from 3.31 tonne of fresh latex input is one tonne of RSS, and the co-products are scrap rubber (0.01 t), bubbled latex (0.08 t), and rubber
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cutting (0.03 t). The wastewater from the process is treated by stabilization ponds system. The treated wastewater is stored in the pond. The characteristics of raw and treated
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wastewater are presented in Table S1. For the large rubber sheet factories (Fig. 1b.), the unsmoked sheet from cultivators (0.84 t) and RSS (0.2 t) from the cooperative rubber sheet factory are the main inputs. The unsmoked sheet goes through washing and smoking process to obtain RSS. The RSS from the production process and the cooperative rubber sheet factory are weighed and packed to produce one tonne of RSSB as the only product (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016b). Fresh latex from cultivators of is the main input in the production of STR 5 (block rubber), about 3.10 tonne being required for producing 1 tonne of STR 5 (Fig. 2a). Fresh
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latex goes through the following production processes: (1) acid forming; (2) pressing and crushing; (3) cleaning, rolling and shredding; (4) drying; and (5) pressing and packing (MTEC, 2014). Several types of wastewater treatment such as activated sludge, upflow
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anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB), and aerated lagoon are used to treat the wastewater from the STR 5 factories. After treatment, the treated wastewater is stored in a retention pond
(Rattanaboon, 2014). STR 5 is the main product and scrap rubber is the co-product, 0.03
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tonne being produced per tonne STR 5.
The production process of STR 20 (block rubber) is presented in Fig.2b. The cup
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lump of 1.18 tonne and unsmoked sheet of 0.37 tonne from plantation are main inputs for producing a tonne of STR 20 along with 0.24 tonne of scrap rubber (co-product). The production process consists of pre-breaker, circulating, shredder and creper, cutting and mixing, circulating, shredder and creper, drying, and compactor. The stabilization pond system was used to treat the wastewater. The characteristics of raw and treated wastewater of
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STR are presented in Table S1 (Rattanaboon, 2014). 2.46 tonne of fresh latex goes to the centrifugation process to get the one tonne of
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concentrated latex (dry rubber content, DRC, 60%) and 0.07 tonne of skim latex (DRC, 515%). Then, the skim latex is brought to the acid forming process to produce the skim crepe
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(Fig.2c.) (Pollution Control Department, PCD, 2005). The wastewater from the process is collected and treated by activated sludge, UASB, and stabilization pond systems. The treated wastewater is stored in a retention pond (Jantara, 2014). The production process of palm oil mills is presented in Fig.3. The FFB from the
plantation is the main input. There are five major sections for the palm oil mill: (1) primary production; (2) oil room; (3) dry section; (4) wastewater treatment system; and (5) utility. The CPO production process consists of sterilization of FFB, fruit separation, digestion, oil
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extraction and oil purification. One tonne of CPO is the main product from 5.49 tonne of FFB; 0.33 tonne shells and 0.27 tonne PK are the co-products (Suttayakul et al, 2016). A large amount of water is used in the sterilization process which results in a large
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amount of palm oil mill effluent (POME) with high organic content. The quantity of POME and characteristics of POME and effluent water from the final pond of each mill were
obtained from study of Suttayakul (2014) and Suttayakul et al. (2016). The COD reduction
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efficiencies of the open pond for cooling, the biogas capture system, and the stabilization pond system were obtained from the study of Kaewmai et al. (2013) and were employed for
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calculating COD of influent to biogas and effluent from biogas system (Table S2). The COD of POME which ranges between 60000 and 120000 mg/L is treated by the open pond system. The COD of effluent water from open pond (as influent water to biogas system) ranged from 44000 to 87000 mg/L. After the biogas system, the COD of effluent water (as influent water to stabilization pond) ranged from 7500 to 12300 mg/L and flowed to
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the stabilization pond system. The treated wastewater in the final pond of the stabilization pond system ranged from1200 to 4,800 mg/L. The treated POME is utilized for oil palm
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cultivation (Kaewmai et al., 2012; Kaewmai et al., 2013, and Suttayakul et al., 2016). These
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COD values were used in calculation of EF.
2.4 EFs calculation
The flow chart of EF calculation for products of rubber factories and palm oil mills is
shown in Fig.4. The methodologies developed by Rees and Wackernagel (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996; 1997) and Chamber (2000) were used to evaluate the EFs of the products from rubber factories and palm oil mills. In addition, the proposed methodology for determination of EF of products based on life cycle assessment by Huijbregts et al., (2008) was applied for calculation of EF in this study. For EF calculation, the LCI is classified into seven categories:
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(1) built up land; (2) wastewater; (3) chemicals; (4) water; (5) electricity; (6) fuel including transport of raw material and input and process use; and (7) raw material from plantation. The EF of products from factories originated from three categories including built up
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land, forest, and energy. The built up land is defined as “land where productive capacity has been largely lost by development such as roads, building, and so on”. The forested land refers to “farmed or natural forests that can yield timber products. Of course, they secure many
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other functions too, such as erosion prevention, climate stability, and climate stability, maintenance of hydrological cycles, and if they are managed properly, biodiversity
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protection”. The energy land is defined as “the land that would be needed to sustainably manage our energy demand”. (Chambers et al., 2000)
The amount of built up land was converted to EF of built up land as presented in Eq. (1).
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EFbuilt up land = S × ep
(1)
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Where EF built up land is EF of built up land utilization (global (gha) hectare/year), S is the surface area consumed (ha/year) and ep is equivalence factor of built up land (Table S3).
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It was assumed that the built up lands for the rubber factories and palm oil mill were used for the next 20 years. Then, production and wastewater treatment technologies must be changed. For the calculation of EF of built up land, the amount of built up in the unit of gha was divided by the amount of output for 20 years. A biological productive hectare to world average biological productivity for given year is the definition of gha. Different land types lead to different productivities (WFN, 2016). The productive land category is divided into cropland, pastures, forest, productive sea, and built land (WWF, 2010)
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Wastewater and chemicals were converted to carbon dioxide emission which was further converted to carbon dioxide land and EF of forest respectively. The annual rate of forest capacity for sequestering the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission of 0.73 tonne
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carbon per ha per year was determined by using the value from the study of Mancini et al. (2015). The oceanic uptake for the year 2010 of 28% was employed in the calculation
(Borucke et al., 2013; Lazarus et al., 2014). The EF of CO2 emission from chemicals is
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calculated by the equation presented elsewhere (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The EF
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of GHG emissions from wastewater is calculated by using Eq. (2) as shown in the following.
EFCO2 = ∑ Cwi ×0.266 ×ef
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Where Cwi is GHG emissions from wastewater treatment plant in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO2eq), 0.266 is area (in hectares/year) required for sequestering a
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tonne of CO2 and ef is the equivalence factor of forest (Table S3). The GHG emissions from the wastewater treatment plant were taken into account in
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the EF calculation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) methodology was used to evaluate the GHG emissions from the wastewater
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treatment plants (UNFCCC, 2010). The quantity of wastewater and COD values were used in the calculation of GHG emissions. The RSS factory uses a stabilization pond system for treating its wastewater. A methane correction factor of 0.3 was used because the stabilization pond was not well managed. In the case of RSSB factory, the GHG emissions from the wastewater treatment were not counted because a very small amount of wastewater was generated from the process. For the block rubber and concentrated latex factories, only the factories that utilized the anaerobic process were included in the determination of the GHG emissions. However, as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) values of the wastewater from
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each factory were available, the ratio between COD and BOD of 1.80 (DIW, 2003) was used to estimate the COD from the BOD values which was then used for the calculation of GHG emissions.
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For the palm oil mills, the quantity of wastewater and COD of wastewater (POME) into open pond, influent water to biogas capture system, influent water to stabilization pond and effluent water from final pond were used in the calculation of GHG emissions.
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The amount of water used in rubber factories and mills was converted to the EF of forest land. The EF of forest for generating water reported by Quesada (2007) was used in the
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calculation (Table S4). The amount of electricity and fuel used were converted to EF of energy. The EF of water, electricity, and fuel was calculated by the equation presented elsewhere (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a)
For the EFraw material, the main input is fresh latex and cup lump and unsmoked sheet for rubber factories, whereas that of palm oil mill is FFB. EFs of raw materials were the sum
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of the EFs of cropland, forest, energy, and built up land obtained from the study of Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a). In this previous work, the EF of cropland is defined as
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the direct land occupation for rubber and oil palm cultivation. The EF of forest is the indirect land occupation for sequestrating CO2 emission and producing water for rubber and oil palm
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cultivation. The EF was allocated to fresh latex, hevea wood, and hevea branches by economic values.
After the area in ha of each category of EF was determined, then, the units were
converted to gha by using the equivalence factors from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, 2010) as tabulated in Table S3. The total EF of products was the sum of the EF in factories and EF of input. The EF was allocated between the main product and co-products by economic values as presented in Table S5.
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3. Results and discussion
3.1 EF of RSS and RSSB
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The RSS and RSSB are used as the input for producing vehicle tires, and industrial rubber parts (Jawjit et al., 2010). The EF of RSS is presented in Table 1. For the southeastern provinces, forest and cropland with average values EF of 6.21 and 0.163 gha/tonne RSS,
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respectively, were the major sources of the total EF. The EF of forest of 7.12 gha/tonne RSS and cropland of 0.180 gha/tonne RSS of the rubber plantation were the major sources of total
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EF of RSS production in the southwestern provinces. A low contribution of the EF of energy and built up land were determined for the production of RSS. The EF of forest for the fresh latex acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of RSS, on average (Table S6). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the acquisition of fresh latex.
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The EF of fresh latex acquisition mainly came from the use of rainwater and irrigation in the cultivation (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The water use in the plantation,
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therefore, is the dominant natural resource for the RSS production. In considering only the production process (Table S6), the main EF of the RSS production originated from the fuel
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used. The minimum, maximum, and average amounts of EF of fuel were 0.014, 0.037, and 0.025 gha/tonne RSS, respectively. The average amount of EF for producing one tonne of RSS in southeastern provinces
was 6.41 gha, whereas that of southwestern provinces was 7.33 gha. The production of a tonne RSS in the southwestern provinces required 0.92 gha higher than the southeastern provinces. This is because producing RSS in southwestern provinces required higher amount of forest resources for providing rain water and sequestering CO2 from the production and
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use of fertilizers as compared the southeastern provinces (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). When the economic values were used to share the EF between product and co-
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products, RSS worked out to 6.78 gha/tonne (Table 1). The bubbled latex had the greatest EF value among the co-products at 6.37 gha/tonne, followed by rubber cutting at 5.99 gha/tonne, and scrap rubber at 3.10 gha/tonne (Table S7).
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In the case of RSSB (Table 1), the EF of forest of 6.69 gha/tonne RSSB and cropland of 0.176 gha/tonne RSSB at the rubber plantation were the major sources of total EF in the
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southeastern provinces. For the southwestern provinces, the average values of EF of forest and cropland were similarly 6.66 and 0.176 gha/tonne RSSB, respectively. EFs of energy and built up land were quite less for the RSSB production. From the breakdown in Table S8, it can be seen that the EFs of forest for the unsmoked sheet and RSS acquisition contributed 77 and 20% of total EF of RSSB, on average. This is because a high amount of rainwater and
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irrigation water was required in production of unsmoked sheet and RSS. Consequently, a large amount of forest area was required for producing water. The EF value of the production
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process was found to be very small in comparison to the acquisition of raw materials. The production of RSSB in southeastern and southwestern Thailand utilized the same amount of
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resources.
3.2 EF of block rubber (STR 5 and STR 20) and scrap rubber The block rubber is used for producing belts, soles, and others products (Jawjit et al.,
2010). In 2015, Thailand exported 1.77 million tonne of block rubber. The major product is STR 20 with the exported quantity of 1.61 million tonne (91% of total exported quantity whereas STR 5 was a modest 4,159 tonne (Rubber Research Institute of Thailand, RRIT, 2016).
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The average values of EF of forest, cropland, and energy for producing one tonne of STR 5 were 6.45, 0.169, and 0.064 gha, respectively. The EF of forest was the major source of EF of STR 5. The EF of built up land was found to be very less (Table 2). On average, the
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EF of forest accounted for 95% of total EF from the fresh latex acquisition for STR 5 (Table S9). The EF value of the production process was found to be very small in comparison to the acquisition of fresh latex. Considering only the production process, the main EF source was
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fuels and chemical use. This is because fuel was inevitably required for transportation of fresh latex and other inputs, and several types of chemicals were employed in the production
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of STR 5.
When the economic value was used to share the EF between product and co-products, the average EF value of STR 5 in Thailand of 6.68 gha/tonne was obtained (Table 2). The scrap rubber as the co-product had an average EF of 3.01 gha/tonne (Table S10).The lowest and highest values of EF of STR 5 were 6.59 and 7.13 gha/tonne, respectively. Considering
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the production process, the factories that had a high value of EF of STR 5 used high amount of fresh latex per tonne STR 5 in comparison to that of other factories. The high amount of
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fresh latex used resulted in the high amount of EF. For the STR 20 production, forest, cropland, and energy with average values EF of
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6.83, 0.178, and 0.044 gha/tonne STR 20, respectively, were the major sources of total EF. The EF of built up land was found to be very less (Table 2). The EF of forest for the cup lump and unsmoked sheet acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of STR 20, on average (Table S11). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the acquisition of cup lump and unsmoked sheet. Considering only the production process, the main EF source was wastewater and water use. This is because the production process required high amount of water in the circulating tank and discharged high amount of wastewater to the wastewater treatment plant.
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When economic values were used to share the EF between product and co-products, the average EF value of STR 20 in Thailand worked out to 7.06 gha/tonne (Table 2). The scrap rubber as the co-product had an average EF of 3.86 gha/tonne (Table S12). The lowest
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and highest values of EF of STR 20 were 6.78 and 7.95 gha/tonne, respectively. The EF high value of STR 20 in the factory resulted from the high use of cup lump and unsmoked sheet per tonne of product.
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The production of a tonne STR 20 required 0.38 gha higher than that of STR 5. This is because producing STR 20 required slightly higher amount of forest resources for producing
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cup lump and unsmoked sheet in comparison to that for fresh latex for producing STR 5. The EF values of scrap rubber in the production of RSS and STR ranged from 3.01 to 3.86 gha/tonne scrap rubber.
3.3 EF of concentrated latex and scrap rubber
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Concentrated latex is used for producing the medical gloves, condoms, and other products (Jawjit et al., 2010). The EF of concentrated latex is tabulated in Table 3. The lowest
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values of EF of forest and cropland were 4.23 and 0.111 gha/tonne concentrated latex, respectively. The highest EF of forest of 7.21 gha/tonne concentrated latex and cropland of
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0.189 gha/tonne concentrated latex were obtained. The major contribution of EF of concentrated latex was from the EF of forest. A high amount of fresh latex per tonne concentrated latex was used in the factory producing the concentrated latex with a high EF value. The EF of energy and built up land contributed relatively less to the production of concentrated latex. EF of forest for the fresh latex acquisition accounted for 96% of total EF of concentrated latex, on average (Table S13). The EF value of the production process was found to be very less in comparison to the fresh latex acquisition.
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The main EF of the concentrated latex production came from the wastewater treatment system (Table S13). The minimum, maximum, and average amounts of EF of wastewater treatment system were 0.008, 0.075, and 0.038 gha/tonne concentrated latex,
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respectively. The factories that had no EF from the wastewater used the activated sludge process with good management. Therefore, there were no methane emissions from the
wastewater treatment system. However, the use of UASB for the treating wastewater could
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generate methane in terms of fugitive emissions, flaring of biogas, and stabilization pond system. This emitted methane in term of carbon dioxide equivalent from the wastewater
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treatment system must be sequestered by forest area. The EF of concentrated latex in Thailand was 5.07 gha/tonne (Table 3), on average. The skim crepe as the co-product had an EF value of 3.79 gha/tonne (Table S14).
3.4 EF of CPO, shells, and palm kernel
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CPO is used as the input for the refinery of edible oil and biodiesel (Silalertruksa and Gheewala, 2012). For the eastern provinces, the average values of EF of forest, energy
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and cropland were 4.97, 0.170, and 0.099 gha/tonne CPO, respectively (Table 4). The EFs of forest, cropland and energy for the southeastern provinces were on average 3.92, 0.092 and
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0.025 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. For the southwestern provinces, the EFs of forest, energy and cropland were 3.92, 0.095, and 0.088 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. EFs of build up land were quite less. The breakdown EF of CPO production is presented in Table S15. EF of forest for FFB acquisition accounted for 92% of total EF of CPO, on average. The production of CPO in the eastern provinces had the highest EF of 5.24 gha/tonne CPO. The production of one tonne CPO in the southeastern and southwestern provinces required 4.10 gha/tonne for resources, on average. The production of one tonne CPO in the eastern provinces required 1.14 gha higher than the southeastern and
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southwestern provinces. Producing CPO in the eastern provinces required a high amount of forest resources of 25 % as compared to the southeastern and southwestern provinces. The main contribution of forest resource for producing CPO came from the forest resource of FFB
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acquisition (Table S14). The EF of FFB acquisition mainly originated from the rainwater and irrigation water use in the cultivation. The FFB acquisition in the eastern provinces required three and eight time more irrigation water when compared to the southeastern and
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southwestern provinces, respectively (Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016a). The water use in the plantation is an important natural resource for the CPO production.
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The main EF of the CPO production originated from the wastewater treatment system (Table S15). The lowest, average, and greatest amounts of EF of wastewater were 0.118, 0.160, and 0.230 gha/tonne CPO, respectively. The POME had a COD between 53,000 and 125,000 mg/L (Keawmai et al., 2013). The palm oil mills used the open pond, biogas capture system, and stabilization ponds. The open pond was used for cooling the wastewater.
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The biogas capture system was the anaerobic digestion tank that converted the organic matter to methane and carbon dioxide as the biogas. The biogas was used to produce electricity by
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the gas engine. The treated wastewater from the biogas capture system was further treated by stabilization ponds (Keawmai et al., 2013). The methane could be directly emitted from the
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open pond and stabilization pond. For the biogas capture system, the fugitive emissions and flaring could release the methane to the atmosphere in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent which must then be sequestered by the forest area. The difference in the operation of the mill and the design of wastewater treatment plant could lead to the variation of methane emissions which resulted in the difference in EF of wastewater treatment. The average EF of 4.34 gha/tonne was obtained for CPO in Thailand (Table 4). Shells are used as the biomass fuel whereas the PK is used to produce palm kernel oil and palm kernel meal (Keawmai et al., 2012). The shell and PK had EF values of 1.82 and 0.33 gha/tonne, respectively (Table S16).
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3.5 EF of products from rubber and palm oil industries in Thailand and recommendation for policy makers The production of STR 20 consumed the greatest amount of resources followed by the
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RSSB, RSS, STR 5, and concentrated latex (dry rubber content, 60%), respectively. As previously described, the main input for RSSB production is unsmoked sheet and RSS. The EF of RSS was considered for calculating the resources consumed for Thailand instead of
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RSSB.
In considering the average value in the LCI data of rubber industries, the production
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of concentrated latex used the highest amount of input in terms of dry rubber followed by RSS, STR 20, and STR 5, respectively, on average. In production of concentrated latex, fresh latex loss could occur at many sections leading to high fresh latex requirement. The production of RSS, STR 20, and STR 5 used comparable inputs in terms of dry rubber. To promote the sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the land
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and water ecosystem requirements for providing resources and absorbing emissions for these industries need to be reduced. The EF of rubber and palm oil products are from two sources:
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(1) fresh latex and FFB acquisition; and (2) processing. However, the major EF source for the RSS, RSSB, STR 5, and concentrated latex, STR 20, and CPO were the fresh latex, cup lump
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and unsmoked sheet, and FFB acquisition, respectively contributing more than 92% of total EF. The program actions to reduce the EF of these products, therefore, should focus on the acquisition of inputs from the plantation as the first priority, followed by the reduction of EF from processing.
For the reduction of EF of the rubber cultivation in Thailand, in general the government provides cost subsidies to cultivators who plan new rubber trees in that were previously used as rubber plantations (Rubber Authority of Thailand, 2016). These cost subsidies should be set according to the EF value. High subsidies should be provided for
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growing new rubber trees in areas requiring low EF for cultivation. Musikavong and Gheewala (2016a) proposed that the reduction of EF of the plantation should be emphasized by growing of rubber and oil palm with high yield. The amount of organic fertilizers and
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pesticides should also be reduced. For the processing, the fuel was the major EF source for RSS and STR 5 production. In the case of concentrated latex and CPO production, the wastewater treatment system was
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the major source of EF. For the STR 20, the wastewater treatment system and water use were the main sources of EF. The program action plan for reducing of EF from processing should
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be accomplished by process optimization and the management of wastewater treatment system and water usage. The responsible organizations should employ the alternative options of process optimization as described below for setting policy to reduce EF. The process optimization of RSS production could be facilitated by several options. The stirring and the ratio of fresh latex to water to formic acid have to be carefully controlled
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to obtain high amount of RSS rather than bubbled latex. To reduce the amount of rubber cutting, the particles in the fresh latex have to be well filtered off. In the casing in split-
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forming boxes, the air bubbled must completely skimmed off. The moisture content of the firewood use in the smoking process should be optimum. The temperature in the oven should
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be controlled within the appropriate range (ORRAF, 2014). In the production of concentrated latex, the loss of fresh latex can occur at 4 sections:
(1) the fresh latex receiving area; (2) the fresh latex receiving tank; (3) the centrifugation process; and (4) the skimming process. For the receiving area, after the fresh latex from cultivators is discharged to the receiving tank, the rubber collation tank in the truck is washed and the remaining fresh latex in this tank is drained to the rubber trap. When the remaining amount of fresh latex in the tank is high, then the percent loss of fresh latex is increased. The receiving tank is cleaned every day after processing is finished and the remaining rubber in
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the tank is discharged into the rubber trap. The rubber in the rubber trap is used for producing skin crepe having a low value in comparison to concentrated latex. The centrifuge is cleaned every two or three hours to avoid clogging. The cleaning process causes the loss of latex. In
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the skimming process if acid forming does not work well, loss can occur (DIW, 2001). For the STR 5, the loss of fresh latex can occur in the receiving tank. In addition, when acid
forming does not work properly, then low productivity is obtained. The loss of fresh latex in
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4 four sections in concentrated latex production and 2 sections in STR 5 production must be monitored, controlled and improved.
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In the case of STR 20, the quality of raw material is very important; the contaminants in cup lump and unsmoked sheet must be removed. Water is used for cleaning raw material in production processes to meet the standard of dirt content. The high amount of water use results in high amount of wastewater. The water use in the production process should be minimized. A water meter should be installed for determining exact amount of water use in
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each process. Then, the water reuse and reduction guideline should be developed and conducted for optimizing amount of water use. The treated wastewater should be recycled
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and used in the production process. In the final stage, the preventive maintenance should be conducted in order to optimize the fuel and electricity use (DIW, 2001).
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For palm oil mills, the oil extraction rate should be increased. When the oil extraction rate is increased, more CPO will be obtained from the same amount of FFB which will result in a lower EF. The oil loss during the production process is an important factor. The oil loss in the extraction process and oil loss to fibers, the decanter cake and wastewater treatment must be monitored and minimized to gain more CPO. There are several heavy machines used in the mill such as a screw press, decanter, separator, empty fruit bunches presser, and cutter. There is a need to ensure that these machines are maintained and operated well to achieve optimum efficiency and they do not break down often. Improvements in operational
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procedures and preventive maintenance should be continuously conducted (DEDE, 2006a, b). These options could help to increase the oil extraction rate value. For the wastewater treatment, there are 4 alternative options for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions: (1) using
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a wastewater dispersed unit to reduce wastewater temperature; (2) upgrading the open pond to a covered pond; (3) enhancing the performance of the biogas system; and (4) changing the stabilization pond to an aerated lagoon. The EF of CPO will be decreased with the reduction
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in greenhouse gas emissions (Keawmai et al., 2013).
The population of Thailand was estimated at 65.7 million as of December 2015
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(DOPA, 2016); the EF was 2.7 gha per capita (GFN, 2016). Thus, the total EF of the country was 177.5 million gha. In 2015, Thailand produced about 0.88 million tonne RSS (RRIT, 2016), the average EF of RSS before allocation was 7.52 gha/tonne. The resources consumed for producing RSS amounted to 6.65 million gha (Fig. 5). The EF before allocation was used in the calculation to represent the total amount of EF from the production. 1.89
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million tonne of STR was produced. The EF before allocation of STR 20 of 7.15 gha/tonne was used in the calculation. The resource used for producing STR amounted to 13.5 million
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gha. Thailand produced about 0.96 million tonne of concentrated latex (The Thai Rubber Association, 2016), with EF before allocation of 5.36 gha/tonne. The resource consumed for
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producing concentrated latex was 5.17 million gha, on average. For CPO, the quantity of FFBs in 2015 was obtained from OAE (2016a). The oil extraction rate of 18.1 percent was used to determine the amount of CPO per year. The average EF of CPO before allocation was 4.97 gha/tonne. The resource used for producing CPO amounted to 9.88 million gha. The EF of RSS, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO accounted for 3.8, 7.6, 2.9, and 5.6 % of the EF of Thailand, respectively. In 2015, the highest value of EF was from STR production (Fig.5). This is because the EF before allocation of STR 20 production was the second highest among
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that of products and the amount of STR production was twice as high as RSS and concentrated latex. The best observed factory or mill is defined as one that produces the product using the
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lowest amount of land and water ecosystem for providing the resources and absorbing emissions in term of gha. The best observed case of RSS, STR 20, concentrated latex, and CPO productions had EFs before allocation of 6.11, 6.89, 4.48, and 3.91 gha/tonne,
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respectively. The resource used for Thailand for producing the RSS, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO were decreased to 3.0% (19% reduction from the average case), 7.3% (3.6%), 2.4%
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(16%), and 4.4% (21%), respectively in this best observed case. The production of CPO has a high potential to reduce the EF. For rubber industry, the production of RSS has a high potential to reduce EF followed by concentrated latex and STR, respectively.
4. Conclusion
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The EFs of RSS, RSSB, STR 5, STR 20, concentrated latex, and CPO in Thailand were determined. The fresh latex and cup lump from the rubber plantation and FFB from the
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oil palm plantation were the major inputs for the rubber factories and the mill, respectively. EFs of the selected products were RSS at 6.78 global hectares (gha)/tonne, RSSB at 6.87
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gha/tonne, STR 20 at 7.06 gha/tonne, STR 5 at 6.68 gha/tonne, concentrated latex at 5.07 gha/tonne, and CPO at 4.34 gha/tonne, on average. The EF of forest for rainwater and irrigation water for production fresh latex and cup lump and FFB accounted for more than 92% of the total EF. The EF for process was quite less for the RSS, RSSB, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO production. The production of RSS had a high potential to reduce the EF, followed by concentrated latex and STR, respectively. In 2015, the sum of EF for the production of RSS, RSSB, STR, concentrated latex, and CPO in Thailand was 35.2 and 30.5 million gha for the average and best observed scenarios, respectively. To satisfy the
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sustainable development of rubber and palm oil industries, the policy makers should include the EF values as the indicator for supporting the expansion of rubber and oil palm industries. The methodology for reduction of EF in the plantation and processing should be established
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in order to optimize the value of EF.
Acknowledgments
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This research was supported by the National Science and Technology Development Agency under the project “Research Network for LCA and Policy on Food, Fuel, and Climate
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Change”.
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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Table Table 1 Ecological footprint of RSS and RSSB EF (gha/t product) EF of EF of built up land cropland
EF of forest
0.026 0.046 0.038
5.89 6.73 6.21
1.87E-04 3.55E-04 2.12E-04
0.154 0.179 0.163
6.09 6.93 6.41
0.025 0.035 0.030 0.035
6.59 7.66 7.12 6.58
1.57E-04 5.96E-04 3.13E-04 2.53E-04
0.153 0.217 0.180 0.170
6.79 7.88 7.33 6.78
0.016
6.69
7.14E-05
0.176
6.88
0.012 0.013
6.66 6.68
3.23E-05 5.06E-05
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RSS The southeastern provinces Minimum Maximum Averagea The southwestern provinces Minimum Maximum Averagea Total average for Thailand a RSSB The southeastern province Songkhla The southwestern province Trang Averagea a weighted average
Total
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EF of energy
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Regions
0.176 0.176
6.85 6.87
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6.34 6.93 6.45
2.28E-04 1.73E-03 5.12E-04
0.165 0.182 0.169
6.59 7.13 6.68
6.57 7.69 6.83
7.17E-04 7.16E-03 2.25E-03
0.172 0.199 0.178
6.78 7.95 7.06
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STR 5 Minimum 0.021 Maximum 0.093 Averagea 0.064 STR 20 Minimum 0.041 Maximum 0.051 Averagea 0.044 a weighted average
EF of forest
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EF of energy
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Minimum 0.007 Maximum 0.015 Averagea 0.012 a weighted average
4.23 7.21 4.93
EF of CL (gha/t CL) EF of EF of built up land cropland 5.04E-05 6.96E-04 1.24E-04
0.111 0.189 0.129
Total
4.35 7.41 5.07
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EF of energy
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The eastern province Chonburi
EF of CPO (gha/t CPO) EF of EF of built up land cropland
EF of energy
EF of forest
0.170
4.97
5.32E-05
0.099
5.24
3.90 4.24 3.92
6.00E-05 1.09E-05 3.72E-05
0.091 0.098 0.092
4.02 4.36 4.10
3.92 4.17
3.72E-05 5.55E-05
0.088 0.092
4.10 4.34
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The southeastern provinces Chumphon 0.027 Suratthani 0.021 a Average 0.025 The southwestern provinces Krabi 0.095 Averagea 0.081 a weighted average
Total
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Provinces
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Figure Fresh latex 3.31 tonne Scrap rubber 0.01
Chemical
Casting in split forming box
Bubble latex 0.08 tonne
Water
Washing
Electricity
Rolling
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Filtration
Washing Firewood
Drying
Rubber cutting 0.03 tonne
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Smoking
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RSS 1 tonne
Fig. 1a.
USS 0.84 tonne
Water
Washing
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Smoking RSS
Chemical
Weight and packing
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RSS 0.20 tonne
RSSB 1 tonne
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Where Input By product
Process Main product
Direction Waste
Fig. 1b.
Fig.1. System boundary for rubber factories 1a) RSS and 1b) RSSB (the amounts of input, product and co-products were obtained from Musikavong and Gheewala, 2016b)
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Fresh latex 3.10 tonne Receiving dock - Chemical - Water
Acid forming Crusher
Shredder Washing Drying Compactor STR 5 1 tonne
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Fig. 2a.
Scrap rubber 0.03 tonne
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Water
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Creper
Cup lump 1.18 tonne
Pre-breaker
Water
Circulating tank
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Shredder and creper USS 0.37 tonne
Cutting and mixing
- Water - Chemical
Circulating tank
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Shredder and creper Drying Compactor STR 20 1 tonne
Fig. 2b.
Scrap rubber 0.024 tonne
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Fresh latex 2.46 tonne
Preservation
- Electricity - Water
Centrifugation Concentrated latex 1 tonne (DRC 60%)
Skim latex (DRC<5%)
Acid forming
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- Chemical - Water
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Receiving dock
Where Input By product
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Skim crepe 0.07 tonne
Process
Main product
Direction Waste
Fig. 2c.
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Fig.2. System boundary for rubber factories 2a) STR 5 and 2b) STR 20 2C) concentrated latex (the amounts of input, product and co-products for STR5, STR 20, and concentrated latex were obtained from this study and Rattanaboon, 2014; Rattanaboon 2014; and Jantara, 2014, respectively)
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Fresh fruit bunch 5.49 tonne Sterilization Fossil fuel Threshing
Empty fruit bunch
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Chemical Digestion
Electricity
Screw pressing
Water
Setting tank
Decanter cake
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Purifier
Dry section Palm kernel 0.27 tonne
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Oil room Vibrating screen
Dryer
Shell 0.33 tonne
Fiber 0.64 tonne
CPO 1 tonne
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Fig.3. System boundary for palm oil mills (the amounts of input, product and co-products were obtained from Suttayakul et al., 2016)
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Built up land
Wastewater
Chemical
Water
Electricity
Fuel
Raw materials
CO2 land
EF of forest
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Total EF
EF of energy
EF of raw materials
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EF of built up land
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CO2 emissions
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Fig.4 .The flow chart of EF calculation for products of rubber factories and palm oil mills
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12 10
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Ecological footprint (Mgha)
14
8 6 4
0 RSS
STR20
CL
CPO
Best observed case
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Average
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2
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Fig. 5. Ecological footprint of the products of rubber industries and palm oil mills in Thailand