Citrus juice production is often a highly integrated industry, and its environmental impact must be assessed across the entire production chain, from fruit cultivation to the production of juice and essential oils. Life-cycle assessments of the citrus industry have been made for Italy (Beccali et al., 2009; Beccali et al., 2010), Brazil (Coltro et al., 2009) and Spain (Ribal et al., 2009). Typically, citrus production requires irrigation, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and soil correctors. Fruit selection and washing, juice and essential oil production as well as citrus pulp dehydration all need fossil fuel energy and result in wastewaters that require treatment facilities.
The use of citrus pulp for animal feeding was found to be an effective way to decrease waste output. An exhaustive analysis should include an assessment of the environmental burdens associated to substitute feeds, and of the associated costs of other methods of citrus pulp disposal. Anaerobic digestion of citrus pulp can produce biogas to be used in the manufacturing process, thereby reducing the energy demand, but it does not reduce waste (Beccali et al., 2010).