Abstract—Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) is one of the most
popular mushrooms in the world. Shiitake farms in Thailand
used the sawdust transported for a long distance. Waste
management of spent substrate bags is in environmental
concern. Energy is also needed for sterilization process.
Therefore the environmental performance of shiitake was
evaluated in this work using life cycle assessment method. We
found that shiitake caused relatively high environmental
impacts, compared to everyday vegetables. The impacts in the
categories of fossil depletion, climate change and terrestrial
acidification caused by 1 kg shiitake were 0.59 kg oil equivalent,
1.87 kg CO2 equivalent and 0.02 kg SO2 equivalent, respectively.
The main impact contributions came from (i) production of
sugar and rice bran used as a substrate, (ii) transportation of
sawdust and firewood used as a substrate and fuel (iii) fuel
burning during sterilization and (iv) burning of spent bags and
neck rings. If the sawdust was transported in the distance of 100
km and if the spent bags and neck rings were not burnt but used
for plastic recycling, the impacts of 52, 58 and 30 % of fossil
depletion, climate change and terrestrial acidification can be
reduced, respectively.
Index Terms—Climate change, environment, LCA, shiitake.
The authors are with the National Metal and Materials Technology Center,
Pathumthani, 12120 Thailand (e-mail: rungnapt@mtec.or.th,
patcharp@mtec.or.th).
Cite:Rungnapa Tongpool and Patcharaporn Pongpat, "Analysis of Shiitake Environmental Performance via Life Cycle Assessment," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 552-557, 2013.