A comparative life cycle assessment on four waste-to-energy scenarios for food waste generated in eateries

Huanhuan Tong, Ye Shen, Jingxin Zhang, Chi-Hwa Wang, Tian Shu Ge and Yen Wah Tong

Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 225, issue C, 1143-1157

Abstract: A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to determine the best solution for dealing with the food waste (FW) generated in Singapore eateries. Since the representativeness of the life cycle inventory (LCI) data determined the overall quality of the LCA, this study made a significant endeavor to capture the local specificities, such as waste composition, water supply and treatment plant operation. Characterization data showed that eatery FW from Singapore contained 16% non-biodegradable impurities (such as plastic and metal) and a higher methane generation potential was found in FW from the dining table than in FW from the kitchen. Based on the FW chemical element composition, mass balances were established for the four examined scenarios, including incineration (Inci), anaerobic digestion (AD) followed by composting (ADcom), AD followed by incineration (ADinci) and AD followed by gasification (ADgas). Because of the environmental benefits from compost production in addition to electricity generation, ADcom outperformed other scenarios in all impact categories except Eutro (eutrophication), GW (global warming) and POC (photochemical ozone creation). The best score of GW was observed in ADgas, mainly ascribed to the highest electricity output and the carbon sequestration of biochar. The disadvantages of the AD scenarios in Eutro and POC were associated with NOx and CO emissions from the biogas engine. Finally, the sensitivity analysis demonstrated that better environmental profiles could be achieved if improvements can be made by minimizing water usage, mitigating gas engine pollution, and diverting as much FW as possible from incineration plants to AD plants. However, based on the local context, source separation was not an urgent issue for improving the sustainability of eatery FW management.

Keywords: Food waste; LCA; Incineration; AD; Gasification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918307724
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:225:y:2018:i:c:p:1143-1157

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.05.062

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().