Life cycle assessment of manure management and nutrient recycling from a Chinese pig farm

Driven by the growing numbers of intensified pig farms around cities in China, there are problems of nutrient surplus and shortage of arable land for utilising the manure. Hence, sustainable livestock systems with effective manure management are needed. The objective of this study is to compare the existing manure treatment of a typical pig farm in Beijing area (separate collection of faeces; ‘Gan qing fen’ system) with an alternative system and to identify the nutrients flow of the whole farm in order to quantify environmental burdens and to estimate the arable land required for sustainable nutrients recycling. Life cycle assessment is used for this purpose. Acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP) and global warming potential (GWP) are analysed in detail; the functional unit is the annual production of the pig farm. The results show that the cropland area demand for sustainable land application of the effluent can be reduced from 238 to 139 ha with the alternative system. It is possible to transfer 29% of total nitrogen, 87% of phosphorus, 34% of potassium and 75% of magnesium to the compost, and to reduce the total AP, EP and GWP of manure management on the farm by 64.1%, 96.7% and 22%, respectively, compared with the current system. Besides an effective manure management system, a full inventory of the regional nutrients flow is needed for sustainable development of livestock systems around big cities in China.