Consumo de água e de energia: uma análise sob a ótica do licenciamento ambiental na indústria de abate de animais do estado da Bahia

Abstract

Brazil is nowadays one of the largest producers and exporters of meat in the world. Despite this positive result, the environmental impacts which were caused by those production activities need to be analyzed. Thus, this paper aimed to evaluate the consumption of water and energy, informed in the environmental licensing processes in Bahia, spent for animal slaughtering activity. For that, data from 13 slaughterhouses and 12 refrigerators recorded in INEMA, from 2006 up to 2012 were used. The results have showed that 75% of the industries that slaughter cattle have high rates of water consumption, with average scores of 1.663 L/animal in slaughterhouses and 1,216 L/animal in cold storage chamber, reaching this figure to 100% in pig slaughtering industries, with an average consumption of 1,093 L/animal in slaughterhouses and 1,125 L/animal in refrigerating chambers. In chicken slaughtering, the average water consumption was 16 L/animal in slaughterhouses and 18 L/animal in cold storage chamber, compatible to benchmark data in the industry. In the energy aspect, it was not possible to quantify the total consumption due to the absence of electricity consumption data. Related to thermal energy, both cattle slaughter industries, which consume on average 241.9 kWh/animal, such as chicken slaughter, with an average consumption of 1.8 kWh/animal in slaughterhouses and 1.6 kWh/animal in refrigerators, they have showed high values, emphasizing the lack of data from that nature for the pigs slaughtering. The absence of such data indicates that this approach is not yet part of the Environmental Agency initiatives and that the concept of eco-efficiency is also not incorporated in the analysis of environmental licensing.