FORUM

Consider a Spherical Man

A Simple Model to Include Human Excretion
in Life Cycle Assessment of Food Products
Ivan Mu noz, Llorenc Mil` a i Canals, and Roland Clift
Keywords:
carbon cycle
feces
industrial ecology
nutrients cycle
urine
wastewater
Summary
Emissions derived from human digestion of food and subse-
quent excretion are very relevant from a life cycle perspective,
and yet they are often omitted from food life cycle assessment
(LCA) studies. This article offers a simple model to allocate
and include these emissions in LCAs of specic foodstuffs.
The model requires basic food composition values and calcu-
lates the mass and energy balance for carbon, water, nutrients
(mainly nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P]), and other inorganic
substances through different excretion paths: breathing, feces,
and urine. In addition to direct excretion, the model also allo-
cates some auxiliary materials and energy related to toilet use,
such as ushing and washing and drying hands. Wastewater
composition is also an output of the model, enabling water
treatment to be modeled in LCA studies. The sensitivity of
the model to food composition is illustrated with different
food products, and the relative importance of excretion in a
products life cycle is shown with an example of broccoli. The
results show that this model is sensitive to food composition
and thus useful for assessing the environmental consequences
of shifts in diet. From a life cycle perspective, the results show
that postconsumption nutrient emissions may dominate the
impacts on eutrophication potential, and they illustrate how
the carbon cycle is closed with the human emissions after food
preparation and consumption.
Address correspondence to:
Llorenc Mil` a i Canals
SEAC, Unilever Colworth
Colworth House, Sharnbrook
Bedfordshire MK44 1LQ, United Kingdom
Llorenc.Mila-i-Canals@unilever.com
c 2008 by Yale University
DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2008.00060.x
Volume 12, Number 4
www. blackwellpublishing. com/jie Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy 521
FORUM
Introduction
Food is a basic human need, recognized as
one of our most resource-demanding and pollut-
ing daily activities when the complete life cy-
cle of food is considered. Food production causes
many environmental impacts through its sup-
ply chain, which includes agricultural produc-
tion, storage, several transport steps, processing,
cooking and consumption, and waste disposal.
Several studies have identied food as one of
the main contributors to the environmental im-
pact of private consumption at both the na-
tional and the international level (Nijdam et al.
2005; Tukker et al. 2006). It is not surprising,
then, that life cycle assessment (LCA) studies
are increasingly directed at food to nd ways to
make its production and consumption patterns
sustainable.
LCA has been applied to many different food
products, including basic carbohydrate foods,
fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat, sh,
and alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks, among
others (Foster et al. 2006). Although some prac-
titioners have conducted full LCAs for partic-
ular products or product groups (Andersson and
Ohlsson 1998; Jungbluth et al. 2000; Ziegler et al.
2003), many studies tend to focus on a partic-
ular stage of the products life cycle, such as
agriculture (Ant on et al. 2004; Mil` a i Canals
et al. 2006), industrial processing (Sonesson,
Mattsson, et al. 2005), transport (Mil` a i Canals
et al. 2007; Sim et al. 2007), retailing (Carlson
and Sonesson 2000), industrial processing and
packaging (Hospido et al. 2006), home storage
and processing (Sonesson et al. 2003; Sonesson,
Anteson, et al. 2005; Sonesson, Mattsson, et al.
2005), and waste management (Sonesson et al.
2004; Lundie and Peters 2005).
Human digestion and excretion remains the
least studied life cycle stage of food products; so
far, only nutrients in food have been included. In
their case study onseafood, Ziegler and colleagues
(2003) included nutrients in the food and their
fate throughsewage treatment. Sonessonand col-
leagues (2004) studied the importance of post-
consumption waste treatment in the life cycle of
food products, proposing a systematic procedure
for modeling the nutrients balance. Nonethe-
less, besides nutrients, published studies have not
covered human metabolism and excretion as a
whole.
The biochemical transformations undergone
by food in the human body give rise to differ-
ent pollutants released to air and water, which
should be included within the system boundaries
of a complete food LCA, similar to the way food
waste is treated whenit is landlled or composted.
Therefore, why has human excretion been sys-
tematically omitted by LCA practitioners up to
date? We can envisage at least three reasons for
this:
1. It is not necessary in case studies compar-
ing similar products, because the environ-
mental burdens would also be similar.
2. LCA is a tool intended to support decision
making at many levels in the food chain;
it can guide decisions about producing or
consuming more or less organic food, fresh
or frozen products, and so forth, but human
metabolism is a constraint, something we
can hardly inuence and therefore must
accept as a limitation. In particular, LCA
has been traditionally used mostly for sus-
tainable production, and hence the focus
has been on cradle-to-gate studies.
3. There are no available models to calculate
the environmental burdens of this stage as
a function of the type of food; that is, there
is no allocation procedure analogous to
those developed for other multi-input pro-
cesses, such as solid waste and wastewater
treatment (Doka and Hischier 2005). Even
though Sonesson and colleagues (2004)
suggest some hints for calculating post-
consumption emissions from food, to our
knowledge, these have not been used in
any published food LCA studies.
As pointed out by Andersson (2000) and
Sonesson and colleagues (2004), the relevance
of including human excretion depends on the
goal of the study. Digestion and excretion are
clearly relevant when the aim is to close the bal-
ance of materials in the life cycle or to com-
pare the environmental effects of different diets
(Jungbluth et al. 2000; Alfredsson 2002; Kytzia
et al. 2004) or ways to provide food (Sonesson,
Mattsson, et al. 2005) due to the dependence of
excretionemissions onfood composition. Human
522 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
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excretion should also be included in attributional
food LCA studies, which aim to identify the life
cycle hot spots.
1
In this work, we address this methodologi-
cal gap by providing a simple model to calcu-
late product-related life cycle inventories of hu-
man excretion. The title of this article refers to
the spherical cow metaphor, where a theoretical
physicist started a calculation on a dairys pro-
duction with Consider a spherical cow. . .. This
metaphor is often used to refer to simplied sci-
entic models of reality, which help understand
more complex problems. The article sets out the
model fundamentals, tests the model with differ-
ent food types, and positions it in the context of
the whole life cycle of a particular product, broc-
coli. The nal section discusses the results and
highlights the main conclusions of the article.
Model Description
The model has been designed as a MS Ex-
cel spreadsheet, a comprehensive description of
which is offered by Mu noz and colleagues (2007).
Figure 1 Modeled system. COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological oxygen demand.
General Structure and System Boundaries
The model can be divided in two main parts:
The rst addresses the global balance of materials
and energy in the human body as a consequence
of ingestion of food with a specic composition,
whereas the second part concerns the auxiliary
materials and energy associated with toilet use.
Figure 1 shows a ow diagram of the system mod-
eled and its boundaries.
It is worth noting that the only emissions
to nature calculated by this model are to air,
mainly from respiration, whereas the wastewater
containing human excrement and toilet paper is
considered as an output to the technosphere. It
is assumed that toilets discharge wastewater to a
sewer connected to a wastewater treatment plant.
This means that, to determine the nal emis-
sions to the environment, an additional model
for wastewater treatment must be used. Several
models are available (Dalemo 1997; Jimenez-
Gonzalez et al. 2001; Doka 2003) to calculate
inventories of wastewater treatment for user-
dened wastewaters. If a scenario with no sewage
treatment is considered, the emissions quantied
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 523
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by the human excretion model must be taken as
the nal mass of pollutants released to the aquatic
environment.
Food Composition
Any kind of food, including plain water, can
be assessed by the model, as long as its compo-
sition is known. The input parameters to be de-
ned, as g/100 g on a fresh weight basis, are the
following:
water content;
protein content;
fat content, including all lipids (saturated
and nonsaturated fatty acids, cholesterol,
etc.);
carbohydrate content, including all sugars
and starch;
Fiber content, including lignin, pectin, and
cellulose;
alcohol;
organic acids not covered by any of the
above categories, such as acetic acid or lac-
tic acid;
inorganic elements, such as phosphorus,
sodium, chloride, magnesium, potassium,
iron, and heavy metals.
Raw and cooked food composition can be
found in handbooks such as that published by
the UK Food Standards Agency (2002). It is im-
portant to consider the composition of the food as
it is ingested, because cooked or boiled food can
have a very different composition as compared to
raw food. As an example, broccoli loses 30% of
Figure 2 Overview of the fate of food constituents in the human body as considered in the model.
its protein and 39% of its carbohydrate content
when boiled (Food Standards Agency 2002).
Inorganic constituents must also be included,
especially if they represent a signicant part
of the food. The occurrence of toxic organic
compounds, such as pesticide residues, is not
taken into account because the added complex-
ity that would be introduced by their modeling
in the human body is out of the scope of this ar-
ticle. In fact, pesticides (and other substances)
metabolites are not even considered in sophisti-
cated pesticide fate models in LCA. Only heavy
metals are included in the food composition, but
it is important to bear in mind that the purpose
of this model is to obtain a life cycle inventory;
impacts on human toxicity of exposure to heavy
metals in food are not assessed.
Human Metabolism Modeling
One of the basic assumptions of the model is
that a steady-state person is considered. This
means that all material entering the body as food
is excreted, including proteins and fat. No accu-
mulation of fat or synthesis of additional proteins
is considered; this is in accordance with the anal-
ysis of Sonesson and colleagues (2004). Food is
entirely converted to excretion products and ex-
pelled fromthe body inone of the following ows:
breath, urine, feces, and skin/sweat.
Figure 2 shows an overview of the transforma-
tions and fate of food entering the human body
according to this model. Food constituents are
divided into four categories: water, degradable
material, nondegradable material, and inorgan-
ics. The model considers as degradable organic
524 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
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Table 1 Elemental composition of organic constituents in food
Elemental composition (kg/kg)
Food
constituents C H O N S Comments
Protein 0.47 0.07 0.29 0.15 0.02 Average C, H, N, O, and S content in each of
the 20 amino acids: alanine, arginine,
asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic
acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine,
leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine,
proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan,
tyrosine, valine
Fat 0.77 0.12 0.12 0.00 0.00 Based only on triglycerides, which constitute
more than 90% of total fat intake in western
diets (Boron and Boulpaep 2003). As C, H,
and O content in two triglycerides used as
models: triglyceride of palmitic acid, oleic acid,
alpha-linoleic acid, and triglyceride of palmitic
acid, palmitic acid, palmitoleic acid.
Carbohydrate 0.42 0.06 0.52 0.00 0.00 Average obtained by the sum of C, H, and O
content of the following carbohydrates:
fructose, sucrose, maltose, lactose, and starch
Alcohol 0.52 0.13 0.35 0.00 0.00 Based on the empirical formula of ethanol,
C
2
H
5
OH
Organic acids 0.40 0.07 0.53 0.00 0.00 Based on the empirical formula of acetic acid,
CH
3
COOH. The weight fractions are equally
valid for lactic acid, C
3
H
6
O
3
, and for any
carbohydrate with formula (CH
2
O)
n
Fiber 0.44 0.06 0.49 0.00 0.00 Dietary ber includes lignins, pectins, and
cellulose (Boron and Boulpaep 2003). The
composition of ber is based on the empirical
formula of cellulose (C
6
H
10
O
5
)
n
Note: C = carbon; H = hydrogen; O = oxygen; N = nitrogen; S = sulfur.
materials all the organic constituents listed in
the section on food composition above, with the
exception of ber (nondegradable organic mat-
ter in gure 2). For carbohydrates, particularly
starch, the availability for digestion seems to be
lower in processed and reheated food (Clifford
2007); this might introduce differences between,
for example, ready-meal and home-prepared ver-
sions of the same foodstuffs. This has not been
taken into account in the model, however: All
organic degradable materials are assumed to be
fully available for digestion.
Inorganics and water are not subject to any
chemical transformation; the latter is partitioned
between air and wastewater, whereas the for-
mer are assumed to report entirely to wastewa-
ter. The main transformation described by the
model is that undergone by degradable organic
material as a result of human digestion. To
model this transformation, a general biochem-
ical reaction has been dened, which, in turn,
requires the chemical composition of the reac-
tants to be dened. Table 1 summarizes the av-
erage elemental composition of the food con-
stituents and how they have been estimated. The
data in table 1, with the exclusion of ber, are
used along with food composition to estimate a
weighted empirical formula for digestible organic
matter.
Nondegradable material is basically excreted
via feces without taking part in any human
metabolic process. An allowance has been made
for ber, however, as well as for degradable or-
ganic matter, to be converted to methane by the
colon bacterial ora. This is further described in
the next section.
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 525
FORUM
The overall biochemical reaction proposed for
degradable organic matter is shown in equation 1.
This equation implies that organic degradable
matter is converted, by cell respiration, to car-
bon dioxide and water, whereas some carbon is
lost in urea (CH
4
ON
2
) and feces (C
2
H
4
O). To
simplify the calculations, it is assumed that all
nitrogen from protein degradation ends up in
urea, so that feces contain only carbon, hydro-
gen, and oxygen, in molar proportions similar to
those in activated sludge in wastewater treatment
plants. All sulphur ends up as sulphate, reported
as H
2
SO
4
. Some sulphur will actually be ex-
creted via growth of hair and nails, but this has
been omitted from the model in the interest of
simplicity.
C
a
H
b
O
c
N
d
S
e
+ AO
2
B CO
2
+C H
2
O + D CH
4
ON
2
+ E H
2
SO
4
+ F C
2
H
4
O
(1)
where
E = e (2)
D = d/2 (3)
F = 0.055a (4)
B = a D F (5)
C = (b 4D 2E 4F)/2 (6)
A= (C + D +4E +2F +2B c)/2 (7)
For equation 1 to be solved, the share of car-
bon incorporated in either carbon dioxide (B) or
feces (F) has to be dened. We have done this
by calculating a balance for degradable carbon in
the human body, with the following assumptions:
Alveolar volume in respiratory system is
350 milliliters (mL),
2
of which 5% is car-
bon dioxide (Boron and Boulpaep 2003).
Breathing rate is taken as the average
of 12/min (Boron and Boulpaep, 2003)
and 20/min (Marieb 1995). This leads
to an average output of 195 grams car-
bon/person/day as carbon dioxide exhaled.
Urine production is 1.5 L/day (Boron and
Boulpaep 2003), with a dry weight of 5%
(Mara 2003) and a carbon content 14% in
dry weight (Feachem et al. 1983). The car-
bon loss in urine follows as 11 g/person/day.
Feces production is around 0.15 kilogram
(kg)
3
per day, with a dry matter content
of 25% and a carbon content of 50% in
the dry matter (Feachem et al. 1983). This
gives 19 g C, fromwhichthe contributionof
nondegradable ber must be excluded. Av-
erage intake of ber is 15 g/person/day, with
a carbon content of 44% (table 1). If we
assume that ber is excreted in feces with-
out any transformation, the contribution of
ber to carbon in feces is 7 g. Therefore,
the output of degradable carbon via feces is
19 7 = 12 g C/person/day.
These calculations lead to a loss of degradable
carbon via feces of 5.5% (equation 4). It is worth
noting that a similar amount is lost via urine,
around 90% of the amount of carbon effectively
used by cell respirationand transformed to carbon
dioxide. This balance has omitted several carbon
ows that were estimated and found to be negli-
gible: carbon dioxide and methane via intestinal
gas, and methane expelled via lungs; altogether,
these account for less than 0.1% of the carbon
output.
The fate of each of the nal products obtained
in equation 1 is dened in the model as follows:
Carbon dioxide is entirely emitted to atmo-
sphere via the lungs.
Urea, sulphate, and feces are expelled as
liquid and solid excreta: urea dissolved in
urine, and feces as solid, whereas sulphate
seems to be almost entirely excreted in
urine (Florin et al. 1991).
Water will be emitted both as a liquid and
as a gas. To determine the share of each,
we have used the water balance suggested
by Boron and Boulpaep (2003), according
to which 64% of the water output corre-
sponds to the liquid phase (60% by urine
and 4% by feces), whereas the remaining
36% corresponds to the air phase (22% by
skin/sweat and 14% by breathing). In ad-
dition to the water produced by cell respi-
ration, the model must also determine the
fate of water originally present in food, usu-
ally a much larger quantity. The fate factors
526 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
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already above also apply to the water in
food.
Fiber is the only category of organic con-
stituents in food not affected by the biochemical
transformation in equation 1. Fiber is assumed to
be emitted to wastewater via feces with no chem-
ical transformation except methane production,
as described below.
Methane Emissions
Besides cell respiration, the only additional
chemical transformationconsidered by the model
is the formation of methane by colonic bacteria.
In carbon terms, the amounts may seem negligi-
ble (see above), but from a greenhouse gas per-
spective they may not be. For this reason, an at-
tempt has been made to estimate the amount of
methane emitted by the human body due to the
activity of anaerobic bacteria in the intestine.
Humancells have no metabolic pathway capa-
ble of producing or metabolizing methane. There-
fore, the model attributes all methane production
to the action of intestinal bacteria and assumes
that all methane is excreted in intestinal gas or
exhaled breath (Bond et al. 1971). Methane pro-
duction varies widely among individual humans:
Some subjects, approximately one third of the
population, continually produce large quantities
of this gas, whereas others consistently excrete lit-
tle or no methane at all. This appears to be related
to the presence or absence of methane-producing
ora: Familial (not necessarily genetic) factors
play an important role in determining whether
a subject produces methane (Levitt and Bond
1980).
4
According to Bond and colleagues (1971), the
average methane excretion rate of methane pro-
ducers is 0.33 mL/min and 0.45 mL/min via lungs
and intestine gas, respectively. If a pressure of
1 atmosphere (atm)
5
and a body temperature of
310 kelvin (K)
6
are considered, this suggests that
a methane producer emits 0.52 g C in CH
4
per
day, or 0.69 g CH
4
per day. If this is corrected to
take into account that only 33% of the popula-
tion are considered to be signicant methane pro-
ducers, we obtainanaverage emissionof 0.17 g C-
CH
4
per person per day, or 0.23 g CH
4
per person
per day. This implies that around 0.08% of the
total carbon emitted by the human population is
in the form of methane.
Degradable organic material contributes to
methane production, but so does dietary ber.
Tomlin and colleagues (1991) found that a ber-
rich diet implies an increase in intestinal gas pro-
duction as compared to a ber-free diet. Bond and
colleagues (1971), however, found that methane
production is insensitive to changes in nonab-
sorbable carbon intake, whereas the production
of other gases, in particular hydrogen, is clearly
enhanced by ber intake. In view of this uncer-
tainty, the model allocates methane emissions to
all carbohydrates present in the food ingested on
the basis of carbon content, regardless of whether
they are digestible.
Metabolic Energy Balance
With regard to the energy balance of the over-
all process, the chemical energy stored in all the
inputs and outputs to and from the human body
is calculated, on the basis of their heating values.
The model uses the upper heating value, because
most water is excreted as the liquid, whereas even
the vapor emissions (exhaling and perspiration)
actually pass through the skin and lung surfaces
as liquid. Upper heating values are calculated for
food, methane, urea, and feces derived from both
degradable and nondegradable organic material
(ber). All the remaining materials (oxygen, wa-
ter, carbon dioxide, sulphate, and phosphorus)
are assigned a null energy content. The heat
content calculation is based on elemental com-
positions according to the formula proposed by
Michel (1938):
Upper Heating Value (MJ/kg)
= 9.8324O +124.265H
+34.016C +19.079S +6.276N (8)
where C, H, O, N, and S are the mass fractions of
eachelement. The gures obtained withequation
8 for the energy input in ber-rich food will be
higher than those reported in food labels, which
normally exclude the caloric value of ber be-
cause it is nonabsorbable and not actually di-
gested.
The difference between the energy input and
output, each calculated with equation 8, is the
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 527
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fraction of energy effectively used by the cells
in their metabolic processes. The model assumes
this energy to be emitted eventually to the envi-
ronment as heat.
Allocation of Technosphere Processes
Using the toilet to evacuate liquid and solid
excretion products implies, directly or indirectly,
the use of ancillary materials and energy. The
model allocates these processes to food intake
on the basis of mass of excretion products. The
following basic assumptions are made:
Every time the toilet is used, it is ushed.
After eachtoilet use, hands are washed with
soap and water at ambient temperature.
At home toilets, hands are dried by means
of a towel, whereas at workplace toilets,
hands are dried by means of a hot air
blower.
Towel production is excluded because of
the long service life of the towel, but wash-
ing and drying at home are included.
Transport of ancillary materials (soap, de-
tergent, toilet paper) is not included.
A set of parameters have been dened and
givendefault values intended to be representative
of UK conditions (table 2). The user can modify
the parameter values to make them representa-
tive of other regions or scenarios.
The different environmental burdens can be
calculated per person per day with the data in
table 2. Next, these gures are divided by the
average daily solid plus liquid excreta production
by an average person, which is taken as 1.65 kg,
made up of 1.5 kg (i.e., 1.5 L) urine and 0.15 kg
feces. The allocation to food intake on the basis
of food excreta is nally carried out by means of
equation 9:
Toilet related burden
kg food intake
=
Toilet related burden
kg solid and liquid excreta

kg solid and liquid excreta

kg food intake
(9)
Model Output
The output of the human excretion model
consists of a disaggregated inventory table includ-
ing inputs from nature (oxygen), inputs from the
technosphere (food itself and those related to toi-
let use), outputs to nature (emissions to air from
respiration and digestion), and outputs to the
technosphere (wastewater). The pollutionload of
the resulting wastewater is expressed in the model
by the parameters total organic carbon (TOC),
biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxy-
gen demand (COD), N-total, P-total, and other
inorganic elements. Asmall amount of these pol-
lutants arises from toilet use (hands washing with
soap, towel washing, etc.), but the highest share
is related to human excreta; they are calculated
by the model as follows:
TOC is determined from the carbon con-
tent in the solid and liquid excretion prod-
ucts, namely ber, and products of equa-
tion 1: feces and urea. COD and BOD are
estimated from TOC according to the fol-
lowing ratios (Doka 2007): TOC/BOD =
0.641, and TOC/COD = 0.479. It must
be noted that these three parameters are
related; just one of themCOD in this
workmust be used in the eutrophication
potential, because otherwise we would be
double counting carbon emissions.
Nitrogen from human metabolism is con-
sidered in the model to be excreted only as
urea. Thus, from the amount of urea pro-
duced and its empirical formula, the nitro-
gen released into wastewater is calculated.
Phosphorus and other inorganics are just
expressed as the initial amounts in food,
because they are not subject to any trans-
formation in the model.
We can calculate the concentration of pol-
lutants in wastewater by dividing the amounts
released by the total water discharged, including
water from toilet use and water in the food it-
self and resulting fromdigestion (see equation 1).
Impacts related to wastewater treatment and the
nal amount of pollutants released to the envi-
ronment must be subsequently modeled by the
LCA practitioner, using, for example, the models
suggested in the General Structure and System
528 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
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Table 2 Parameters and default values used for allocation of toilet use processes
Default
Parameter value Comments
Toilet ush volume
(L)
11 Measured volume of a standard toilet tank at the University of
Surrey
Hand-washing water
use (L/wash)
1.5 Assumption
Toilet uses
(times/day)
5 Assumption; this includes both urination and defecation
Toilet uses at home
(%)
57 This parameter is used to estimate the share of hand drying by
means of a cotton towel. The remaining 33% is assumed to
be done at work with a hot air blower. The value is an
assumption based on the following gures: 5 working days
per week, 2 weekend days per week. In a working day, three
toilet trips are made at the workplace, and two at home. On
weekends, all toilet trips are made at home.
Toilet paper use
(kg/day/person)
0.02 Calculated with the following data: tissue paper consumption
in Western Europe in 2004 was 4.1 million tonnes, of which
62% was toilet tissue, and 18% was consumed in the United
Kingdom and Ireland (European Tissue Symposium, 2005).
The population of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2004
was 63,727,560 (Eurostat 2007).
Hand-washing
(liquid) soap use
(g/wash)
3.3 Measured weight at University of Surrey toilet was 100 g liquid
soap dispensed per 60 pushings. The gure considers two
dispenser pushings per wash.
Electric hot air
blower power
(kW)
2 Average power of a hand dryer (Handryers.net 2005)
Time needed to dry
hands (s)
30 Average drying time of a hand dryer (Handryers.net 2005)
Towel weight (kg) 0.35 Assumed for a cotton towel
Number of persons
per household
2.4 Average for the United Kingdom (Ofce for National
Statistics 2007)
Frequency of towel
washing (days)
7 Assumption
Power demand of
washing machine
(kWh/kg towel)
0.43 Washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances
1995)
Detergent use by
washing machine
(g/kg towel)
45 135 g detergent for a typical 3-kg load. Process related to
washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances
1995)
Water use by
washing machine
(L/kg towel)
17.2 Washing of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances
1995)
Power demand of
towel drier
(kWh/kg towel)
0.7 Drying of the cotton towel (Group for Efcient Appliances
1995). Average of three technologies: air vented tumble
driers, condenser tumble driers, and condenser washer driers
Hand-washing
wastewater
composition
(mg/L)
COD: 400 Representative averages from several studies (Eriksson et al.
2002)
Continued
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 529
FORUM
Table 2 Continued
Default
Parameter value Comments
BOD: 190
N-total: 10
P-total: 1
Laundry wastewater
composition
(mg/L)
COD: 1270 Representative averages from several studies (Eriksson et al.
2002)
BOD: 260
N-total: 10
P-total: 25
Note: COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological oxygen demand; N-total = nitrogen total; P-total =
phosphorus total. One kilowatt (kW) 56.91 British Thermal Units (BTU)/minute 1.341 horsepower
(HP).
Boundaries section of this article. Table 3 shows
an example of an inventory table obtained for
a particular product, namely boiled broccoli, by
applying the model to the composition for this
product given in table 4.
Results
Model Sensitivity to Different Food Types
The sensitivity of the model to food compo-
sition has been tested on eight food products
commonly present in daily western diets, with
typical compositions givenintable 4: bread, broc-
coli, apple, chicken meat, beer, cheese, a choco-
late snack, and coffee. Selected inventory results
are given in gure 3. Rather than comparing the
environmental performance of these food items,
the following discussion aims at exploring how
the model responds to extremely different data
inputs.
Figure 3 shows that some parameters are
highly variable from one food type to another,
whereas others remain quite similar. The amount
of solid and liquid excretion products emitted to
wastewater (gure 3a), for example, is rather sim-
ilar for all these food products, in the range 0.5
to 0.65 kg per kg food, primarily because water
is one of the main components in food and 64%
of the water is assumed to report to urine and
feces regardless of the food type. Nevertheless,
foods with low water content, such as the choco-
late snack or the parmesan cheese, lead to similar
values. This is explained by the fact that one of
the main outputs of the organic degradation reac-
tion, as shown in equation 1, is also water. If the
mass of excretion products per kilogram ingested
is broadly comparable for all foods, then the en-
vironmental burdens from the technosphere pro-
cesses described above (e.g., wastewater volume,
gure 3d) will also be similar for all food products,
because all these processes are allocated on the
basis of the amount of solid and liquid excretion
products.
Carbon dioxide emissions due to respiration
(gure 3b), conversely, are highly variable de-
pending on the food type; between coffee and the
chocolate snack, for instance, there is a difference
of three orders of magnitude. This is clearly re-
lated to the degradable carbon content in food,
which is very high in dry foods, such as cheese
and chocolate, and very low in drinks, such as
coffee or beer. Methane emissions (gure 3c) fol-
low a pattern similar to that for carbon dioxide
emissions, because this pollutant is allocated on
the basis of carbon content in food. In this case,
not only degradable carbon but also nondegrad-
able carbon (present as ber) contributes; how-
ever, we see in table 4 that in most of the food
products considered, the main source of carbon is
other than ber.
The volume of wastewater discharged to the
sewer (gure 3d) shows a similar pattern for all
foodstuffs. Across all products, the quantity of
wastewater is 20 to 26 liters per kilogram of food,
530 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
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Table 3 Inventory table for excretion of boiled broccoli
Inputs and outputs Comments
Inputs
From nature
Oxygen (g) 71 Oxygen needed for cell respiration of degradable constituents in
food (carbohydrates, fat, and protein)
From the technosphere
Broccoli, boiled in
unsalted water (g)
985 Grams of food ingested
Toilet paper (g) 7.8 Allocated on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta mass
Tap water (L) 24.4 Toilet ushing plus hand washing, plus towel washing, allocated
on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta mass
Soap (g) 6.5 Hand washing, allocated on the basis of solid plus liquid excreta
mass
Detergent (g) 0.36 Detergent for washing machine used for towel washing, which, in
turn, has been used to wash hands
Power (kWh) 0.023 Electricity for hot air blower, washing machine, and drier. All
these processes are related to hand drying
Outputs
To nature
Air emissions:
Carbon dioxide (g) 80 Produced by catabolism of degradable constituents in food
(carbohydrates, fat, and protein)
Methane (g) 0.037 Produced by colonic bacteria. Degradation of all
carbon-containing compounds, including ber
Water (g) 337 36% of all water ingested or produced by catabolism is evaporated
by the body through skin or breathing. Main source of water
here is the initial content in food, but there is also water
produced in cell respiration
Heat (MJ) 1.0 Energy actually used by metabolic processes
To the technosphere
Toilet paper (g) 7.8 Present in wastewater
Wastewater volume (L) 25 Sum of solid plus liquid excreta plus tap water
Wastewater emissions from food:
Urea (g) 9.8 All nitrogen in food is assumed to be included here
N-urea (g) 4.6 Urea expressed as nitrogen mass
TOC (g) 13 Carbon content in urea and ber
BOD (g) 21 Related to carbon content from urea and ber
COD (g) 28 Related to carbon content from urea and ber
Sulphate (g) 2.2 From protein metabolism
P-total (g) 0.57 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus
liquid excreta.
Na (g) 0.13 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus
liquid excreta.
K (g) 1.7 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus
liquid excreta.
Ca (g) 0.4 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus
liquid excreta.
Cl (g) 0.23 Inorganic constituents in food are 100% allocated to solid plus
liquid excreta
Continued
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 531
FORUM
Table 3 Continued
Inputs and outputs Comments
Wastewater emissions from toilet use:
BOD (g) 0.59 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing
COD (g) 1.3 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing
N-total (g) 0.030 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing
P-total (g) 0.0064 Related to gray wastewater: hand washing and towel washing
Note: N, P, Na, K, Ca, and Cl refer to the elemental symbols. COD = chemical oxygen demand; BOD = biological
oxygen demand; N-total = nitrogen total; P-total = phosphorus total.
Megajoule (MJ) = 10
6
joules (J, SI) 239 kilocalories (kcal) 948 British Thermal Units (BTU).
associated mainly with toilet use (ushing, wash-
ing hands, etc.).
The mass of pollutants discharged to the sewer
(gure 3e) shows a different picture. In this case,
big differences are seen between products, up to
two orders of magnitude in all three parameters.
There is a clear relationship betweenproteincon-
tent and discharge of urea and sulphate, as pro-
teins are the only food constituents containing
nitrogen and sulphur in their empirical formula.
Carbonaceous organic matter, measured as COD,
is related not only to proteins but also to ber and
degradable organic matter in general. This gure
shows only the amount of pollutants derived from
solid and liquid excretion products, whereas the
contribution of toilet use (gray wastewater from
hands washing and towel washing) is excluded.
Table 4 Composition of several food products, in grams per 100 g edible portion
Coffee, White
Broccoli, Roasted Lager Chocolate Parmesan Apple, infusion, bread,
Component boiled chicken beer snack cheese nonpeeled average sliced
Water (g) 91.1 65.3 93 2 27.6 84.5 98.3 38.6
Protein (g) 3.1 27.3 0.3 7.5 36.2 0.4 0.2 7.9
Fat (g) 0.8 7.5 Tr 26 29.7 0.1 Tr 1.6
Carbohydrate (g) 1.1 0 Tr 63 0.9 11.8 0.3 46.1
Fiber (g) 2.3 0 Tr N 0 1.8 0 1.9
Alcohol (g) 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0
P (g) 0.057 0.2 0.019 0.2 0.68 0.011 0.007 0.095
Na (g) 0.013 0.1 0.007 0.12 0.756 0.003 Tr 0.461
K (g) 0.17 0.3 0.039 0.33 0.152 0.12 0.092 0.137
Ca (g) 0.04 0.017 0.005 0.2 1.025 0.004 0.003 0.177
Cl (g) 0.023 0.088 0.02 0.21 1.26 Tr 0.003 0.829
Source: Food Standards Agency (2002).
Note: P, Na, K, Ca, and Cl refer to the elemental symbols. Tr = trace (considered as zero); N = no reliable information
(considered as zero).
Nonetheless, table 3 shows that the contribution
of toilet use is one order of magnitude lower for
the particular case of broccoli.
Finally, as expected, the energy content of
food is also highly variable (shown in parenthe-
ses on top of the bars in gure 3f), as also is the
energy efciency of the human body, depending
on the composition of food. The efciencies go as
high as 95% for beer and as low as 63% for broc-
coli. The most energy-efcient foods appear to be
alcoholic drinks, due to the ethanol content, and
also fat- and carbohydrate-richfoods, whereas the
least efcient are those containing a high share
of proteins, such as chicken, and especially, ber,
as in the case of broccoli. Proteins show a lower
efciency due to an important energy loss in the
form of urea, whereas the human body is simply
532 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
FORUM
Figure 3 Selected model results for several food products.
unable to digest the ber in ber-rich foods and
use its chemical energy.
Importance of Human-Excretion-Related
Impacts in the Overall Life Cycle
of Foodstuffs
Figure 4 shows the cradle-to-grave results for
consumption in the United Kingdom of 1 kg
broccoli grown in Spain. Details of the life cy-
cle modeling for these crops are provided by Mil` a
i Canals and colleagues (2008). The excretion
and wastewater stage includes the emissions de-
scribed in this article in addition to the treat-
ment of the wastewater described in table 3; the
latter has been modeled as described by Mu noz
and colleagues (2007). Global warming potential
(GWP) and eutrophication potential (EP) have
been assessed according to the CML2001 method
(Guin ee et al. 2002); in addition, the inventory
indicators water use (WU) and primary energy
use (PEU) are shown in gure 4.
EP (gure 4a) is dominated by the home
and excretion and wastewater stages, which con-
tribute 32% and 45%, respectively, to the total
EP related to the broccoli life cycle. The former
contributes due to the loss of nitrogen and phos-
phorus from broccoli to the boiling water during
cooking. Nitrogen and phosphorus are not effec-
tively removed inthe sewage plant and so become
emissions to aquatic ecosystems; note that these
gures assume that only 11% of wastewater is
treated in plants equipped with nutrient-removal
processes, because this is the current situation in
the United Kingdom (Mu noz et al. 2007). Also,
there is the contribution from leachate emissions
from landlling of food waste (uneaten broccoli;
see the top section in the Home bar in gure 4a).
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 533
FORUM
Figure 4 Contribution of different life cycle stages and items to eutrophication potential, global warming
potential, water use, and primary energy use for consumption in the United Kingdom of 1 kg Spain-grown
broccoli. WWT = wastewater.
Nonetheless, wastewater treatment of feces and
urine creates the biggest contribution to EP; this
is mostly due to nitrogen and phosphorus com-
pounds.
In the case of GWP (gure 4b), the contribu-
tion from the excretion and wastewater phase is
not as signicant as in the nutrient-related im-
pact. Energy use at home (mainly for boiling
the broccoli) dominates GWP through carbon
dioxide (CO
2
) emissions, whereas fertilizer re-
lated nitrous oxide (N
2
O) and CO
2
from fuel
use by farm machinery dominate the cropping
stage. The GWP reduction in cultivation, due to
the C embodied in broccoli through photosyn-
thesis (seen as a negative bar in Figure 4b), is
almost entirely reemitted to the atmosphere dur-
ing the excretion and wastewater stage. The re-
maining C is emitted in the landlled food waste
and/or remains in the landll or sewage sludge
from wastewater.
Concerning WU (gure 4c), the cropping
stage is clearly the most important one, as it is
responsible for 73%of the overall water consump-
tion. Broccoli is an irrigated crop in Spain, using
something less than 200 L/kg. The contributions
of the home (15%) and excretion and wastewater
(9%) stages are not negligible, however. It must
be highlighted that the water use associated with
the home stage is mainly cooling water used in
electricity production, rather than water actually
used in the kitchen for cooking. Although the
contribution of these two stages may seem low,
it must be borne in mind that if UK-grown broc-
coli were considered, these relative contributions
would be much higher, because in the United
Kingdom broccoli is rain fed.
Finally, PEU (gure 4d) is clearly dominated
by the home stage, due to the electricity and gas
consumed for broccoli cooking, which account
for 65% of the PEU. Retail and distribution and
cropping are responsible for 22% and 11%, re-
spectively. In this case study, it is concluded
that human excretion and further wastewater
treatment have a negligible contribution from a
PEU perspective. Nevertheless, it is interesting
to observe that the PEU of toilet use processes
534 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy
FORUM
(production and delivery of toilet paper, soap,
tap water, etc.) is three times higher than that
related to treating the fecal wastewater in the
sewage plant.
Discussion and Conclusions
Human excretion has proven to be signi-
cant in the overall life cycle of food products.
Particularly for the nutrient-related EP, emis-
sions from postconsumer wastewater treatment
are of paramount importance, together withother
home-related nutrient losses through boiling wa-
ter and food waste. This is crucial, as it is often
concluded from partial LCA studies, cradle-to-
gate or cradle-to-retail, that EP is dominated by
the cropping stage. Obviously, nutrient emissions
from agriculture merit attention due to their dif-
fuse nature and the fact that it is possible to reduce
them. Nonetheless, nutrient emissions from do-
mestic activities should not be overlooked. The
results obtained in this work suggest the impor-
tance of educating consumers on healthy cook-
ing to avoid ushing so much of the foods nutri-
ent content down the drain (e.g., 30%of proteins
and 34%of phosphorus are lost to the water when
broccoli is boiled). The amount of nutrients lost
in the cooking stage will vary signicantly with
food type, particularly with foodstuffs that are
eaten raw (e.g., lettuce, fruit); in this case, there
would be less nutrient loss in the kitchen but
more releases after treatment of fecal wastewater.
It should be noted that the contribution of excre-
tion and wastewater to GWP would also be more
signicant for foodstuffs that are eaten raw (i.e.,
when no energy is used for cooking). In addi-
tion, the contribution from the distribution stage
is relatively high, and the relative importance of
excretionis therefore reduced inthe example pre-
sented here because broccoli is transported over
2,600 kilometers (km).
7
The model presented here provides a tool to
enable human excretion to be included in food
LCAs. This tool might also be of interest for other
environmental analysis methods, such as mate-
rial ow analysis and substance ow analysis, as
the model can be used to close the balances for
carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, among other
substances present in food.
Concerning the application of this model to
regions different from the United Kingdom and
other western countries, we can make a distinc-
tion between human body modeling, on the one
hand, and toilet use and wastewater treatment
plants, on the other. The default values used
here to model the latter are representative of
the United Kingdom, but they can be modied
at will by the user. The balances obtained from
human body modeling are based on gures from
western sources but should be generally applica-
ble. For most of the variables included, data from
different regions have not been found, but the
model should give reasonable estimates of emis-
sions from the macronutrients in food.
The case study presented here can be con-
sidered as an attributional LCA. Our model has
proven to be useful in highlighting the relative
importance of excretion in a food products life
cycle. Nevertheless, it has also been shown to be
very sensitive to food composition, which sug-
gests that it may also be useful in consequential
LCA, dealing with such topics as the environ-
mental assessment of dietary shifts. Until now,
only the comparative environmental impacts of
producing the ingredients for different diets have
been assessed; this study shows that differences
related to excretion emissions from different diet
compositions may also be important, particularly
when changes in the balance of macronutrients
(proteins, fats, carbohydrates, ber) occur. Future
research should check the signicance of the ex-
cretion stage for a range of food products. In addi-
tion, the model could be developed further to al-
lowfor differing Ncontent inproteins fromdiffer-
ent sources (e.g., to distinguish between animal-
based and plant-based proteins); however, ini-
tial exploration of variations in protein/N factors
suggests that the resultant changes in excretion
impacts are likely to be small.
Acknowledgements
This research was carried out under
project RES-224-25-0044 (http://www.bangor.
ac.uk/relu), funded as part of the UK Rural
Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme.
Dr. Mil` a i Canals acknowledges GIRO CT
(http://www.giroct.net) for its logistic support.
The authors kindly thank Prof. Mike Clifford for
Mu noz et al., Human Excretion in LCA of Food Products 535
FORUM
his useful comments on the model, Gabor Doka
for his support inwastewater treatment modeling,
and the three anonymous reviewers who have
provided constructive comments on this article.
Notes
1. Depending on the goal of the study, LCAs
are usually classied as follows (Weidema, 2003):
Attributional: life cycle assessments of the ac-
countancy type, typically applied for hot-spot
identication, for product declarations, and for
generic consumer information. This would cor-
respond to the type of study carried out in our
article.
Consequential: they study the environmental
consequences of possible (future) changes be-
tween alternative product systems, typically ap-
plied inproduct development and inpublic policy
making. This type of LCA would correspond to a
case study dealing with diet shifting.
2. One milliliter (mL) = 10
3
liters (L)
0.034 uid ounces.
3. One kilogram(kg, SI) 2.204 pounds (lb).
4. The presence of mercaptans in intestinal
gas is regarded as a local environmental quality
issue and not included in the model.
5. One atmosphere (atm) 760 torr 14.70
pounds/inch
2
.
6. 310

K 36.85

C 98.33

F.
7. One kilometer (km, SI) 0.621 miles
(mi).
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About the Authors
Ivan Mu noz was a research fellow at the Cen-
tre for Environmental Strategy, University of
Surrey, Surrey, United Kingdom, at the time the
article was written. He is currently a researcher
at the Department of Hydrogeology and Analy-
tical Chemistry, University of Almeria, Almeria,
Spain. Llorenc Mil` a i Canals was a research fel-
low at the Centre for Environmental Strategy,
University of Surrey, at the time the article was
written. He is currently life cycle analysis man-
ager within Unilevers Safety and Environmental
Assurance Centre (SEAC) group, Unilever Col-
worth, Colworth, United Kingdom. Roland Clift
is distinguished professor of environmental tech-
nology in the Centre for Environmental Strat-
egy at the University of Surrey and president-
elect of the International Society for Industrial
Ecology.
538 Journal of Industri al Ecol ogy