Evaluation of the environmental impacts of two pathways for utilizing chicken meat production waste in Guilan Province

A chicken meat processing systems are a primary source of valuable materials because of the considerable amount of waste they generate. Among the most effective methods for managing and converting waste into higher-value materials is the adoption of a circular bioeconomy strategy within biorefineries. this study examines two biorefineries that utilize chicken waste. In the initial pathway, chicken meat and sound insulation from chicken feathers are manufactured while the second pathway also involves the production of chicken meat, sound insulation, as well as biodiesel and glycerol from chicken fat waste. In this research, Simapro software and ReCiPe method were used to evaluate the life cycle assessment. The findings from this research indicated that the second pathway offers superior environmental performance when compared to the first pathway. Based on the findings, the second pathway presents a decrease of 21.92% in the overall environmental impact caused by producing chicken meat when compared to the first pathway. Following the first pathway, the production of one ton of chicken meat can leads to damages of 6.83E-03 DALY to human health, 6.81E-05 species.yr to ecosystems, and $101 to resources. Following the second pathway, production leads to a reduction of 23.26% in human health damage, 24.48% in ecosystem damage, and 17.76% in resource depletion. As such, moving toward production along the second pathway, i.e. diverse materials production, represents a promising strategy for managing the existing waste and reducing the environmental damage caused by chicken meat production.