Life cycle assessment of cheese and whey production in the USA

Table 5 Percent increase in cradle-to-grave and post-farm gate impacts (in parentheses) from 1 to 60 months cheddar aging in refrigerated warehouse (the baseline scenario assumed ∼70.6 days total aging, if manufacturing plants hold 10–14 days—values in this table are for total aging time)

Impact category	Months of additional aging, % (%)
Impact category	1	2	12	24	36	48	60
Climate change	0.09 (0.37)	0.19 (0.73)	1.1 (4.4)	2.2 (8.8)	3.3 (13)	4.5 (18)	5.6 (22)
Cumulative energy demand	0.22 (0.43)	0.44 (0.87)	2.6 (5.2)	5.3 (10)	7.9 (16)	11 (21)	13 (26)
Freshwater depletion	0.00 (0.13)	0.00 (0.25)	0.03 (1.5)	0.06 (3.0)	0.08 (4.5)	0.11 (6.0)	0.14 (7.5)
Marine eutrophication	0.06 (0.18)	0.12 (0.36)	0.75 (2.2)	1.5 (4.4)	2.2 (6.6)	3.0 (8.7)	3.7 (11)
Photochemical oxidant formation	0.06 (0.26)	0.13 (0.52)	0.77 (3.1)	1.5 (6.2)	2.3 (9.3)	3.1 (12)	3.9 (15)
Freshwater eutrophication	0.07 (0.41)	0.15 (0.83)	0.89 (5.0)	1.8 (9.9)	2.7 (15)	3.6 (20)	4.5 (25)
Ecosystems	0.03 (0.26)	0.06 (0.52)	0.36 (3.1)	0.71 (6.2)	1.1 (9.4)	1.4 (12)	1.8 (16)
Human toxicity	0.39 (0.50)	0.78 (1.0)	4.7 (6.0)	9.4 (12)	14 (18)	19 (24)	23 (30)
Ecotoxicity	0.01 (0.50)	0.03 (1.0)	0.17 (6.0)	0.34 (12)	0.51 (18)	0.69 (24)	0.86 (30)