The fruit and vegetable sector generates large amounts of waste, which poses both environmental and economic issues. Different strategies can be applied to valorise fruit and vegetable waste (FVW) by turning it into value-added products. However, the economic and environmental impact of such strategies is largely unknown. In this paper, the environmental and economic impact of FVW valorisation on an industrial scale was evaluated by developing a Decision Support System (DSS). To this aim, the lettuce waste study-case was considered, since different innovative laboratory-scale strategies have been recently proposed for its valorisation. Investment and running costs, energetic demand and yields of lettuce waste valorisation processes were collected based on laboratory tests and industrial surveys. The application of the DSS estimated that if 20% of lettuce waste annually produced by a large company was valorised, it would present a system configuration that involves anaerobic digestion, composting, high pressure homogenization to produce fresh juices, and ultrasound-assisted extraction to produce antioxidant extracts; this configuration leads to an investment lower than 10 million €, a 1 year-pay-back time and a 72 tons-reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, thus representing a rational compromise between economic returns and environmental advantage.

The developed multi-objective decision support system is a valuable tool to identify the most sustainable and investment-worthy processes for the valorisation of FVW.

水果和蔬菜部门产生大量废物，这带来了环境和经济问题。通过将其转变为增值产品，可以采用不同的策略来增值果蔬废料（FVW）。但是，这种策略的经济和环境影响在很大程度上尚不清楚。在本文中，通过开发决策支持系统（DSS）评估了FVW增值对工业规模的环境和经济影响。为此目的，考虑了生菜废料的研究案例，因为最近提出了各种创新的实验室规模化战略来对其价值进行评估。根据实验室测试和工业调查，收集了生菜废物评估过程的投资和运行成本，精力充沛的需求和产量。DSS的应用估计，如果对一家大公司每年生产的生菜废料进行20％的定价，它将呈现出一种系统配置，包括厌氧消化，堆肥，高压均质化以生产新鲜果汁，以及超声辅助提取以生产抗氧化剂提取物；这种配置导致投资额低于1000万欧元，投资回收期为1年，二氧化碳排放量减少了72吨，从而在经济效益和环境优势之间取得了合理的折衷。

发达的多目标决策支持系统是一种有价值的工具，可用于确定最可持续和最具投资价值的过程，以评估FVW的价值。