Environmental assessment of nutrient recycling from biological pig slurry treatment – Impact of fertilizer substitution and field emissions

•Direct field emissions from organic fertilizer dominated environmental impacts.•The amount of avoided mineral fertilizers largely influenced environmental impacts.•Modified plant available nitrogen calculation considers total nitrogen emissions.•Calculation method for amount of avoided mineral fertilizers.

Pig slurry treatment is an important means in reducing nitrogen loads applied to farmland. Solid phase separation prior to biological treatment further allows for recovering phosphorus with the solid phase. The organic residues from the pig slurry treatment can be applied as organic fertilizers to farmland replacing mineral fertilizers. The environmental impacts of nutrient recycling from aerobic, biological pig slurry treatment were evaluated applying the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. LCA results revealed that direct field emissions from organic fertilizer application and the amount of avoided mineral fertilizers dominated the environmental impacts. A modified plant available nitrogen calculation (PAN) was introduced taking into account calculated nitrogen emissions from organic fertilizer application. Additionally, an equation for calculating the quantity of avoided mineral fertilizers based on the modified PAN calculation was proposed, which accounted for nitrogen emissions from mineral fertilizer application.