Environmental sustainability assessment of biodegradable bio-based poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) from agro-residues: Production and end-of-life scenarios.

In the context of a circular bio-based economy, more public attention has been paid to the environmental sustainability of biodegradable bio-based plastics, particularly plastics produced using emerging biotechnologies, e.g. poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) or PHBV. However, this has not been thoroughly investigated in the literature. Therefore, this study aimed to address three aspects regarding the environmental impact of PHBV-based plastic: (i) the potential environmental benefits of scaling up pellet production from pilot to industrial scale and the environmental hotspots at each scale, (ii) the most favourable end-of-life (EOL) scenario for PHBV, and (iii) the environmental performance of PHBV compared to benchmark materials considering both the pellet production and EOL stages. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was implemented using Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environment (CEENE) and Environmental Footprint (EF) methods. The results show that, firstly, when upscaling the PHBV pellet production from pilot to industrial scale, a significant environmental benefit can be achieved by reducing electricity and nutrient usage, together with the implementation of better practices such as recycling effluent for diluting feedstock. Moreover, from the circularity perspective, mechanical recycling might be the most favourable EOL scenario for short-life PHBV-based products, using the carbon neutrality approach, as the material remains recycled and hence environmental credits are achieved by substituting recyclates for virgin raw materials. Lastly, PHBV can be environmentally beneficial equal to or even to some extent greater than common bio- and fossil-based plastics produced with well-established technologies. Besides methodological choices, feedstock source and technology specifications (e.g. pure or mixed microbial cultures) were also identified as significant factors contributing to the variations in LCA of (bio)plastics; therefore, transparency in reporting these factors, along with consistency in implementing the methodologies, is crucial for conducting a meaningful comparative LCA.

Technical substitutability of recycled materials in life cycle Assessment: A comprehensive review and framework for quantification.

In evaluating environmental sustainability with methodologies like life cycle assessment (LCA), recycling is usually credited for avoiding impacts from virgin material production. Consequently, the LCA results are influenced by the manner in which the substitutability of virgin by recycled materials is estimated. This study reviews how the scientific community assesses the technical substitutability of recycled materials in LCA. Accordingly, 49 peer-reviewed papers were in-depth analysed, considering aspects such as materials studied, type of substitution, recycled material (rMaterial) application, and life cycle stages (LCSs) where substitution was evaluated. The results show that 49% of the papers investigated material substitutability through technical and economic aspects. 51% of the articles did not consider the final application of the rMaterial. Plastics were the most studied material, and mass was the most used property to quantify technical substitutability. Certain materials were more analysed in specific LCSs (e.g., metals in the natural resource extraction stage). As 51% of the papers developed a new approach for substitutability calculation, this shows that substitutability is still a concept in development. It was noticed in 33% of the papers that substitutability values were taken from external sources, and in some cases were used without considering whether they were representative for a specific case. Aspects such as harmonization, transparency, and consideration of the application of recycled materials, therefore, require more attention in substitutability evaluation. Based on the results, a step-wise framework to measure technical substitutability at different LCSs was developed to guide researchers in including substitutability in LCA studies.

Environmental life cycle assessment of nutraceuticals: A case study on methylcobalamin in different packaging types.

The growing production of pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, e.g., methylcobalamin supplements, improves the health of people. This study assesses the environmental footprint of chewable methylcobalamin supplements in four packaging types: blister packs or bottles made of HDPE, PET, or glass. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment is conducted to evaluate the supply to Belgian consumers of the recommended daily dose of methylcobalamin supplementation (1.2 mg) in case of deficiency. The impact of methylcobalamin manufacturing in major producing countries (China as baseline and France) is analyzed based on detailed synthesis modeling of data points coming from patents. The overall carbon footprint (CF) is dominated by the transport of consumers to the pharmacy and methylcobalamin powder manufacturing in China (while its mass share per supplement is only 1 %). The impact is the lowest for supplements in HDPE bottles (6.3 g CO2 eq) and 1 %, 8 %, and 35 % higher for those in PET bottles, glass bottles, and blister packs, respectively. Tablets in blister packs have for other investigated impact categories (fossil resource footprint (FRF); acidification; eutrophication: freshwater, marine, and terrestrial; freshwater ecotoxicity; land use; and water use) the highest footprint and those in HDPE and PET bottles for most the lowest. The CF of methylcobalamin powder manufacturing in France is 22 % lower than in China (2.7 g CO2 eq), while the FRF is similar in both locations (26-27 kJ). The FRF and the difference in the CF are chiefly due to energy use and solvent production emissions. Similar trends as the CF are found for other investigated impact categories. Valuable conclusions are drawn for environmental studies on pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals: (i) including accurate data on consumer transport, (ii) using more environmentally-friendly active ingredients, (iii) choosing appropriate packaging types considering multiple aspects: convenience, environmental footprint, etc., and (iv) providing a holistic picture through assessing various impact categories.

Environmental performance of plastic food packaging: Life cycle assessment extended with costs on marine ecosystem services.

Packaging can play a substantial role in moving towards more sustainable food systems by affecting the amount of food loss and waste. However, the use of plastic packaging gives rise to environmental concerns, such as high energy and fossil resource use, and waste management issues such as marine litter. Alternative biobased biodegradable materials, such as poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) could address some of these issues. For a careful comparison in terms of environmental sustainability between fossil-based, non-biodegradable and alternative plastic food packaging, not only production but also food preservation and end-of-life (EoL) fate must be considered. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to evaluate the environmental performance, but the environmental burden of plastics released into the natural environment is not yet embedded in classical LCA. Therefore, a new indicator is being developed that accounts for the effect of plastic litter on marine ecosystems, one of the main burdens of plastic's EoL fate: lifetime costs on marine ecosystem services. This indicator enables a quantitative assessment and thus addresses a major criticism of plastic packaging LCA. The comprehensive analysis is performed on the case of falafel packaged in PHBV and conventional polypropylene (PP) packaging. Considering the impact per kilogram of packaged falafel consumed, food ingredients make the largest contribution. The LCA results indicate a clear preference for the use of PP trays, both in terms of (1) impact of packaging production and dedicated EoL treatment and (2) packaging-related impacts. This is mainly due to the higher mass and volume of the alternative tray. Nevertheless, since PHBV has limited persistence in the environment compared to PP packaging, the lifetime costs for marine ES are about seven times lower, and this despite its higher mass. Although further refinements are needed, the additional indicator allows for a more balanced evaluation of plastic packaging.

Material flow analysis and recycling performance of an improved mechanical recycling process for post-consumer flexible plastics.

Increasing the recycling rates for post-consumer flexible plastics (PCFP) waste is imperative as PCFP is considered a difficult-to-recycle waste with only 17 % of PCFP effectively recycled in Europe. To tackle this pressing issue, improved mechanical recycling processes are being explored to increase the recycling rates of PCFP. One interesting option is the so-called quality recycling process (QRP) proposed by CEFLEX, which supplements more conventional mechanical recycling of PCFP with additional sorting, hot washing, improved extrusion, and deodorization. Material flow analysis (MFA) model is applied to assess the performance of QRP. Four performance indicators related to quantity (process yield and net recovery) and quality (polymer grade and transparency grade) are applied to measure the performance of three PCFP mechanical recycling scenarios. The results are compared against the conventional recycling of PCFP, showing that QRP has a similar process yield (64 % - 66 %) as conventional recycling (66 %). The net recovery indicator shows that in QRP higher recovery rates are achieved for transparent-monolayer PCFP (>90 %) compared to colored-multilayer PCFP (51 % - 91 %). The quality indicators (polymer and transparency grades) demonstrate that the regranulates from QRP have better quality compared to the conventional recycling. To validate the modeling approach, the modeled compositional data is compared with experimental compositional analyses of flakes and regranulates produced by pilot recycling lines. Main conclusions are: (i) although yields do not increase significantly, extra sorting and recycling produces better regranulates' quality (ii) performing a modular MFA gives insights into future recycling scenarios and helps in decision making.

Environmental Performance Assessment of a Novel Process Concept for Propanol Production from Widely Available and Wasted Methane Sources.

Currently, propanol production highly depends on conventional fossil resources. Therefore, an alternative production process, denoted as "C123", is proposed and evaluated in which underutilized and methane-rich feedstocks such as biogas (scenario BG), marginal gas (scenario MG), and associated gas (scenario AG) are converted into propanol. A first modular-scale process concept was constructed in Aspen Plus, based on experimental data and know-how of the C123 consortium partners. The environmental performance of the considered scenarios was compared at the life cycle level by calculating key performance indicators (KPIs), such as the global warming burden. The results showed that scenario BG is the least dependent on fossil fuels for energy use. Scenario AG seems the most promising one based on almost all selected KPIs when taking into account the avoided gas flaring emissions. The performance of the C123 process concept could be improved by applying heat integration in the process concept.

Retrospective and prospective material flow analysis of the post-consumer plastic packaging waste management system in Flanders.

The post-consumer plastic packaging waste management in Flanders was analyzed by performing a retrospective material flow analysis, covering an extensive period from 1985 to 2019. In addition, a prospective material flow analysis of 32 improvement scenarios was performed, based on expected changes in the waste management system. Mass recovery rates were calculated based on different interpretations of the calculation rules. Moreover, various cascading levels were identified to differentiate between the quality level of the secondary applications. The mass recovery rate including only recycling evolved from a value of 0% in 1985 to 31% in 2019 and could be increased to 36-62% depending on the improvement scenario selected. However, the different interpretations of the calculation rules led to a variation of up to 20 and 41% on this mass recovery rates for the retrospective and prospective analysis, respectively. The introduction of monostream recycling for additional post-consumer plastic packaging flows, such as low-density polyethylene, did not lead to increasing mass recovery rates, if no differentiation for the cascading levels was made. The Belgian recycling target of 65% for 2023 will be challenging if the strictest calculation method needs to be followed or if the improvements in the Flemish post-consumer plastic packaging waste system do not follow the best-case collection scenarios under the given assumptions. To harmonize the calculation and monitoring of these targets, clear calculation rules need to be accompanied with a harmonized monitoring system over the entire waste management system.

Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment.

Nowadays, a variety of methodologies are available to assess local, regional and global impacts of human activities on ecosystems, which include Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) and Ecosystem Services Assessment (ESA). However, none can individually assess both the positive and negative impacts of human activities at different geographical scales in a comprehensive manner. In order to overcome the shortcomings of each methodology and develop more holistic assessments, the integration of these methodologies is essential. Several studies have attempted to integrate these methodologies either conceptually or through applied case studies. To understand why, how and to what extent these methodologies have been integrated, a total of 110 relevant publications were reviewed. The analysis of the case studies showed that the integration can occur at different positions along the cause-effect chain and from this, a classification scheme was proposed to characterize the different integration approaches. Three categories of integration are distinguished: post-analysis, integration through the combination of results, and integration through the complementation of a driving method. The literature review highlights that the most recurrent type of integration is the latter. While the integration through the complementation of a driving method is more realistic and accurate compared to the other two categories, its development is more complex and a higher data requirement could be needed. In addition to this, there is always the risk of double-counting for all the approaches. None of the integration approaches can be categorized as a full integration, but this is not necessarily needed to have a comprehensive assessment. The most essential aspect is to select the appropriate components from each methodology that can cover both the environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits of human activities on the ecosystems.

Analysis of the Cultured Meat Production System in Function of Its Environmental Footprint: Current Status, Gaps and Recommendations.

Cultured meat has been presented as an environmentally friendlier option to conventional meat, but due to the limited data, the studies related to its performance are scarce and based on hypothetical production processes. This work provides a short literature review of the published environmental assessments of cultured meat. The main findings of this critical analysis showed that the lack of real data related to cultured meat decreased the level of accuracy of each study. The missing environmental profile of the process itself, including the proliferation and differentiation phases in bioreactors, along with key ingredients such as growth factors and other recombinant proteins, increase the difficulty of achieving reliable conclusions. In order to bridge the highlighted gaps, a complete production system is modelled and analysed from an engineering and life-cycle perspective. Furthermore, an overview of the supply chains of different products used in the process is provided, together with recommendations on how they should be considered in future life-cycle assessments. In essence, this work provides a structured pathway for upcoming consistent environmental assessments in this field, with the objective of setting the basis to understand the potential of cultured meat.

Analysis of long-term statistical data of cobalt flows in the EU.

Long-term statistical data was explored, acquired, processed, and analysed in order to assess the historical domestic production and international trade of a number of cobalt-containing commodities in the EU. Different data sources were examined for data, such as the British Geological Survey (BGS), the US Geological Survey (USGS), and the Eurostat and UN Comtrade (UNC) databases, considering all EU-member states before and after they joined the EU. For the international trade, hidden flows related to data gaps such as data reported in monetary value or recorded as "special category" were identified and included in the analysis. In addition, data from the Finnish customs database (ULJAS) was used to complement flows reported by Eurostat and UNC. From UNC, data was obtained considering the member states as reporters or as partners of the trade, due to internal differences of the database. Based on the acquired data the domestic production and international trade of the commodities were reconstructed for the timeframes 1938-2018 and 1988-2018, respectively. Next to the analysis of the trend of the production and trade of the different commodities, the importance of including hidden flows was revealed, where hidden flows represented more than 50% of the flow of a year in some cases. In addition, it was identified that even from reliable data sources, strong differences (more than 100% in some cases) can be found in the reported data, which is crucial to consider when utilizing the data in research.

Quantification of the global and regional impacts of gas flaring on human health via spatial differentiation.

Globally, gas flaring caused 350 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2018. In addition to climate change, this burning practice also has other negative consequences for humans (e.g., respiratory problems) and the environment. The aim of this paper is to quantify the impact of flaring on human health (at the global and country level) via the calculation of the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) caused by the combustion of associated gas. For this quantification, gas flaring emissions were linked with midpoint indicators (e.g., climate change) in life cycle assessment (LCA) for all selected countries. Regionalised characterisation factors (CFs) were applied in the impact assessment to allow for spatial differentiation. The global impact on human health caused by flaring was obtained by taking the sum for all countries. The results show that these flaring emissions globally cause 4.83 × 105 DALYs or 6.19 × 10-5 DALYs/person on an annual basis. This amounts to 0.12% of the total DALYs related to air pollution (from PM2.5) caused by all polluting sectors and 6.51% of the total DALYs related to climate change. To quantify these impacts, this study uses a country perspective rather than considering local characteristics. Thus, if more precise information at a more local level (e.g., city level) is sought, additional factors (e.g., meteorological conditions) should be taken into account. Finally, future research should also focus on the benefits of gas flaring reduction techniques to enable the selection of the most promising technologies for the elimination of gas flaring and its effects.

Life cycle assessment of edible insects (Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis larvae) as a future protein and fat source.

Because it is important to develop new sustainable sources of edible protein, insects have been recommended as a new protein source. This study applied Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to investigate the environmental impact of small-scale edible insect production unit in South Korea. IMPACT 2002 + was applied as the baseline impact assessment (IA) methodology. The CML-IA baseline, EDIP 2003, EDP 2013, ILCD 2011 Midpoint, and ReCiPe midpoint IA methodologies were also used for LCIA methodology sensitivity analysis. The protein, fat contents, and fatty acid profile of the investigated insect (Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis larvae) were analyzed to determine its potential food application. The results revealed that the studied edible insect production system has beneficial environmental effects on various impact categories (ICs), i.e., land occupation, mineral extraction, aquatic and terrestrial ecotoxicity, due to utilization of bio-waste to feed insects. This food production system can mitigate the negative environmental effects of those ICs, but has negative environmental impact on some other ICs such as global warming potential. By managing the consumption of various inputs, edible insects can become an environmentally efficient food production system for human nutrition.

Sustainability assessment of organic waste management in three EU Cities: Analysing stakeholder-based solutions.

This study focuses on a comprehensive sustainability assessment of the management of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste in Ghent (Belgium), Hamburg (Germany) and Pécs (Hungary). A sustainability assessment framework has been applied to analyse social, environmental, and economic consequences at the midpoint level (25 impact categories) and at the endpoint level (5 areas-of-protection). For each case study, the reference scenario was analysed, along with three solutions to improve the sustainability performance, which were selected and developed with the collaboration of local stakeholders. The solutions focus on food waste prevention, collection (increasing separate collection and household composting) and/or valorisation treatment (insect breeding, bioplastic production and improvement of centralised treatment). The results show that food waste prevention results in substantial improvements in all areas of protection when a significant quantity of food is saved. Solutions proposing innovative treatments such as insect breeding do not show clear improvements at the endpoint level, given current technology development level, but appear promising for some categories such as Revenues, Ecotoxicity, Land Use or Particulate Matter if the substituted products compensate the impact of the treatment (e.g., energy and water use). Enhancing the separate collection of organic waste can improve sustainability, but trade-offs may arise, e.g., decreased environmental savings from energy recovery at incineration. For this, the influence of the electricity mix (more or less decarbonised) should be carefully considered in future studies. The application of the solutions proposed to other cities should also consider potential bottlenecks such as legislation barriers, public acceptance, or management costs.

Life cycle assessment and energy comparison of aseptic ohmic heating and appertization of chopped tomatoes with juice.

The energy balance and life cycle assessment (LCA) of ohmic heating and appertization systems for processing of chopped tomatoes with juice (CTwJ) were evaluated. The data included in the study, such as processing conditions, energy consumption, and water use, were experimentally collected. The functional unit was considered to be 1 kg of packaged CTwJ. Six LCA impact assessment methodologies were evaluated for uncertainty analysis of selection of the impact assessment methodology. The energy requirement evaluation showed the highest energy consumption for appertization (156 kWh/t of product). The energy saving of the ohmic heating line compared to the appertization line is 102 kWh/t of the product (or 65% energy saving). The energy efficiencies of the appertization and ohmic heating lines are 25% and 77%, respectively. Regarding the environmental impact, CTwJ processing and packaging by appertization were higher than those of ohmic heating systems. In other words, CTwJ production by the ohmic heating system was more environmentally efficient. The tin production phase was the environmental hotspot in packaged CTwJ production by the appertization system; however, the agricultural phase of production was the hotspot in ohmic heating processing. The uncertainty analysis results indicated that the global warming potential for appertization of 1 kg of packaged CTwJ ranges from 4.13 to 4.44 kg CO2eq. In addition, the global warming potential of the ohmic heating system ranges from 2.50 to 2.54 kg CO2eq. This study highlights that ohmic heating presents a great alternative to conventional sterilization methods due to its low environmental impact and high energy efficiency.

The environmental impact of household's water use: A case study in Flanders assessing various water sources, production methods and consumption patterns.

Responsible water use and sustainable consumption and production are high on the agenda of multiple stakeholders. Different water supply sources are available, including tap water, bottled water, domestically harvested rainwater and domestically abstracted groundwater. The extent to which each of these water supply sources is used, differs over consumption patterns in various housing types, being detached houses, semi-detached houses, terraced houses and apartments. To identify the environmental impact of a household's water use and potential environmental impact reduction strategies, a holistic assessment is required. In this paper, the environmental impact of a household's water use in Flanders (Belgium) was assessed including four different water supply sources and four different consumption patterns by means of a life cycle assessment. The outcomes of this study reveal a large difference between the environmental impact of bottled water use, having a global warming impact of 259 kg CO2-eq.·m-3, compared to the other three supply sources. Tap water supply had the lowest global warming impact (0.17 kg CO2-eq.·m-3) and resource footprint (6.51 MJex·m-3) of all water supply sources. The most efficient strategy to reduce the environmental impact of household's water use is to shift the water consumption from bottled to tap water consumption. This would induce a reduction in global warming impact of the water use of an inhabitant in Flanders by on average 80%, saving 0.1 kg CO2-eq.·day-1 in case of groundwater-based tap water. These results provide insights into sustainable water use for multiple consumption patterns and can be used to better frame the environmental benefits of tap water use.

Development of a life cycle impact assessment framework accounting for biodiversity in deep seafloor ecosystems: A case study on the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone.

The transformation of ecosystems is known to be a major driver of biodiversity loss. Consequently, supporting tools such as life cycle assessment methods (LCA) include this aspect in the evaluation of a product's environmental performance. Such methods consist of quantifying input and output flows to assess their specific contributions to impact categories. Therefore, land occupation and transformation are considered as inputs to assess biodiversity impacts amongst others. However, the modelling of biodiversity impact in deep seafloor ecosystems is still lacking in LCA. Most of the LCA methods focus on terrestrial biodiversity and none of them can be transposed to benthic deep sea because of knowledge gaps. This manuscript proposes a LCA framework to assess biodiversity impacts in deep seafloor ecosystems. The framework builds upon the existing methods accounting for biodiversity impacts in terrestrial and coastal habitats. A two-step approach is proposed, assessing impacts on regional and on global biodiversity. While the evaluation of regional biodiversity impacts relies only on the benthic communities' response to disturbance, the global perspective considers ecosystem vulnerability and scarcity. Those provide additional perspective for the comparison of impacts occurring in different ecosystems. The framework is operationalised to a case study for deep-sea mining in the Clarion Clipperton Fractures Zone (CCZ). Through the large variety of data sources needed to run the impact evaluation modelling, the framework shows consistency and manages the existing limitations in the understanding of deep seafloor ecosystems, although limitations for its application in the CCZ were observed mainly due to the lack of finer scaled habitat maps and data on connectivity. With growing interest for commercial activities in the deep sea and hence, increased environmental research, this work is a first attempt for the implementation of LCA methods to deep-sea products.

Development and application of a predictive modelling approach for household packaging waste flows in sorting facilities.

Household packaging waste sorting facilities consist of complex networks of processes to separate diverse waste streams. These facilities are a key first step to re-enter materials into the recycling chain. However, so far there are no general methods to predict the performance of such sorting facilities, i.e. how efficiently the heterogeneous packaging waste is sorted into fractions with value for further recycling. In this paper, a model of the material flow in a sorting facility is presented, which allows changing the incoming waste composition, split factors on the sorting units as well as the setup of the sorting facility. The performance of the sorting facility is judged based on the purity of the output material (grade) and the recovery of the input material. A validation of the model was performed via a case study on Belgian post-consumer packaging waste with a selection of typical waste items that can be found in this stream. Moreover, the model was used to predict the possible sorting qualities of future Belgian post-consumer packaging waste after an extension of the allowed waste packaging items in the waste stream. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was performed on the split factors, which are a key data source in the model. Overall, the developed model is flexible and able to predict the performance of packaging waste sorting facilities as well as support waste management and design for recycling decisions, including future design of packaging, to ensure proper sorting and separation.

Detailed Analysis of the Composition of Selected Plastic Packaging Waste Products and Its Implications for Mechanical and Thermochemical Recycling.

Plastic packaging typically consists of a mixture of polymers and contains a whole range of components, such as paper, organic residue, halogens, and metals, which pose problems during recycling. Nevertheless, until today, limited detailed data are available on the full polymer composition of plastic packaging waste taking into account the separable packaging parts present in a certain waste stream, nor on their quantitative levels of (elemental) impurities. This paper therefore presents an unprecedented in-depth analysis of the polymer and elemental composition, including C, H, N, S, O, metals, and halogens, of commonly generated plastic packaging waste streams in European sorting facilities. Various analytical techniques are applied, including Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized optical microscopy, ion chromatography, and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), on more than 100 different plastic packaging products, which are all separated into their different packaging subcomponents (e.g., a bottle into the bottle itself, the cap, and the label). Our results show that certain waste streams consist of mixtures of up to nine different polymers and contain various elements of the periodic table, in particular metals such as Ca, Al, Na, Zn, and Fe and halogens like Cl and F, occurring in concentrations between 1 and 3000 ppm. As discussed in the paper, both polymer and elemental impurities impede in many cases closed-loop recycling and require advanced pretreatment steps, increasing the overall recycling cost.

Quantitative sustainability assessment of household food waste management in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

Food waste represents the largest fraction of the municipal solid waste generated in Europe and its management is associated to suboptimal performance in environmental, health, and social dimensions. By processing detailed multi-fold local data as part of a comprehensive and broadly understandable sustainability framework, this study quantifies the environmental and socio-economic impacts of household food waste management in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area based on priorities set by local stakeholders. Five alternative short-term management options have been assessed against the current system, relying on poor separate collection and incineration. Four options involve separate collection of food waste followed by biological treatments (home/centralised composting and anaerobic digestion) while one involves a mix of separate collection and centralised mechanical-biological treatment followed by anaerobic digestion. Among these, separate collection followed by anaerobic digestion coupled with effective nutrient and energy recovery is, according to our findings, the preferred option to improve the sustainability of the current system in all dimensions considered, except for the economic pillar due to the collection costs. Home and centralised composting as well as mechanical-biological treatment are associated to more adverse impacts based on our findings. The study informs local stakeholders and authorities on the potential consequences of their options, thereby allowing them to make sound choices for a future waste and circular economy strategy.