Smart Approaches to Food Waste Final Disposal

Franco Cecchi and Cristina Cavinato
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Franco Cecchi: Department of Biotechnology, University of Verona, Strada le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona, Italy
Cristina Cavinato: Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Campus Scientifico via Torino 155, 30172 Mestre, Venice, Italy

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 16, 1-13

Abstract: Food waste, among the organic wastes, is one of the most promising substrates to be used as a renewable resource. Wide availability of food waste and the high greenhouse gas impacts derived from its inappropriate disposal, boost research through food waste valorization. Several innovative technologies are applied nowadays, mainly focused on bioenergy and bioresource recovery, within a circular economy approach. Nevertheless, food waste treatment should be evaluated in terms of sustainability and considering the availability of an optimized separate collection and a suitable treatment facility. Anaerobic codigestion of waste-activated sludge with food waste is a way to fully utilize available anaerobic digestion plants, increasing biogas production, energy, and nutrient recovery and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Codigestion implementation in Europe is explored and discussed in this paper, taking into account different food waste collection approaches in relation to anaerobic digestion treatment and confirming the sustainability of the anaerobic process based on case studies. Household food waste disposal implementation is also analyzed, and the results show that such a waste management system is able to reduce GHG emissions due to transport reduction and increase wastewater treatment performance.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; codigestion; food waste; organic waste; energy and resource recovery; food waste disposal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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