Trends in Food Waste Management

Trends in Food Waste Management
by Salman Zafar
http://bioenergyconsult.wordpress.com/tag/food-waste/

Food waste is an untapped energy source that mostly ends up rotting in landfills, thereby releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Food waste is difficult to treat or recycle since it contains high levels of sodium salt and moisture, and is mixed with other waste during collection. Major generators of food wastes include hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, residential blocks, cafeterias, airline caterers, food processing industries, etc.

In United States, food waste is the third largest waste stream after paper and yard waste. Around 12.7 percent of the total municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in the year 2008 was food scraps that amounted to about 32 million tons. According to EPA, about 31 million tons of food waste was thrown away into landfills or incinerators in 2008. As far as United Kingdom is concerned, households throw away 8.3 million tons of food each year. These statistics are an indication of tremendous amount of food waste generated all over the world.

The proportion of food waste in municipal waste stream is gradually increasing and hence a proper food waste management strategy needs to be devised to ensure its eco-friendly and sustainable disposal. Food waste can be recycled via:

•In-vessel composting (IVC): A treatment that breaks down biodegradable waste by naturally occurring micro-organisms with oxygen, in an enclosed vessel or tunnel;
•Anaerobic digestion (AD): A treatment that breaks down biodegradable waste in the absence of oxygen, producing a renewable energy (biogas) that can be used to generate electricity and heat.
Currently, only about 3 percent of food waste is recycled throughout U.S., mainly through composting. Composting provides an alternative to landfill disposal of food waste, however it requires large areas of land, produces volatile organic compounds and consumes energy. Consequently, there is an urgent need to explore better recycling alternatives. Anaerobic digestion has been successfully used in several European and Asian countries to stabilize food wastes, and to provide beneficial end-products. Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Germany and England have led the way in developing new advanced biogas technologies and setting up new projects for conversion of food waste into energy.

Of the different types of organic wastes available, food waste holds the highest potential in terms of economic exploitation as it contains high amount of carbon and can be efficiently converted into biogas and organic fertilizer. Food waste can either be used as a single substrate in a biogas plant, or can be co-digested with organic wastes like cow manure, poultry litter, sewage, crop residues, abattoir wastes, etc.
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Food Waste-to-Energy
by Salman Zafar

The waste management hierarchy suggests that reduce, reuse and recycling should always be given preference in a typical waste management system. However, these options cannot be applied uniformly for all kinds of wastes. For examples, organic waste is quite difficult to deal with using the conventional 3R strategy. Of the different types of organic wastes available, food waste holds the highest potential in terms of economic exploitation as it contains high amount of carbon and can be efficiently converted into biogas and organic fertilizer.

There are numerous places which are the sources of large amounts of food waste and hence a proper food-waste management strategy needs to be devised for them to make sure that either they are disposed off in a safe manner or utilized efficiently. These places include hotels, restaurants, malls, residential societies, college/school/office canteens, religious mass cooking places, airline caterers, food and meat processing industries and vegetable markets which generate organic waste of considerable quantum on a daily basis.

The anaerobic digestion technology is highly apt in dealing with the chronic problem of organic waste management in urban societies. Although the technology is commercially viable in the longer run, the high initial capital cost is a major hurdle towards its proliferation. The onus is on the governments to create awareness and promote such technologies in a sustainable manner. At the same time, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations and environmental agencies should also take inspiration from successful food waste-to-energy projects in other countries and try to set up such facilities in Indian cities and towns.

Coke Cake

While having a drink of coke the other day, it just struck me on the idea of baking a cake with it. On top of adding coke into the cake mixture, I also made some coke glazing to pour over the baked cake for a glossy finish. The taste of coke was not prominent as those who tasted the cake could not guess that coke was one of the ingredients until I told them so. Here’s how the recipes goes:

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup coke
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs – beat/whisk until fluffy
3 tbsp salted butter
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Glazing:
1 1/2 cup coke
1 tbsp brown sugar

Method:
Add sugar and coke into a pan, simmer until you get a thick syrup and reduced to half the portion.
Off the heat, add butter and stir slowly to dissolve it.
Let it cool down, then the shifted the flour, soda and baking powder. Gently fold in.
Add the eggs and do the same.
Line a baking tray with parchment/baking paper, covering all sides/angles
Pour the cake mixture inside and bake at a preheated oven (10mins) – 200c for 40 Min’s or until the cake is done with.
For the glazing, simmer the coke and sugar, again to obtain a thick syrup.
Pour over the cake while its still warm.
Let the cake cool down before cutting in shapes you prefer.