Modelo de evaluación cualitativo de impacto ambiental para la producción de panela en pequeños agro emprendimientos

Abstract

Panela is a product traditionally used in the family basket in Colombia and is defined as the process of physical transformation that uses sugar cane as raw material and cleaning aids for its juices, to become a solid that can be in circular or square shape, depending on the productive unit (agro-enterprises or trapiche). The physical process consists mainly of grinding, filtration, clarification,and evaporation of the juices in an oven, which generally uses sugarcane bagasse as fuel, mostly artisanal processes and impacts on the environment or immediate surroundings of the sugar mill. The environmental situation in sugar mills is often unknown to both for the people who work there and for their owners.

The present work, through a case study of Trapiche los Restrepos, developed a diagnosis of environmental footprint in the artisanal production of panela, remaining as the most representative being air pollution and water pollution. Based on this exercise, an evaluation model of the environmental impacts of the product derived from sugar cane using the Leopold evaluation methodology, which could be replicated in the artisan sugar mills in Colombia, being the first step for a route with a view to the sustainability of the sector and its compliance. environmental.