impact of food waste on environment

Impact of food waste on environmentRecycling system ( Biogas and organic fertilization)

Samane,RasoulinejadMsc of Microbial BiotechnologyFall 2013-2014minoostar@ymail.com

Food wastage – Why is it an issue?

• Each year, about ⅓ of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted

• The model has also calculated 2 types of food wastage volumes:

• Volumes for the edible and the non-edible parts of food;• Food wastage for only the edible part of food.

"UNEP and FAO have identified food waste and loss --food wastage–

“United Nations Environment Programme”

What is the environmental impact of food wastage?

The later in the life cycle a product is wasted, the greater the impactsof its useless production and transformation

• The global volume of food wastage in 2007 is estimated at 1.6 Gt of “primary product equivalents”

• The food wastage for the edible part of food only is 1.3 Gt

• The carbon footprint of food wastage is estimated to 3.3 Gt CO2 eq., equivalent

• to more than twice the total GHG emissions of USA road transportation in 2010

• If food wastage was a country, it would rank as the 3rd top emitter

Hot spot•

Wastage of cereals in Asia is a significant problem, with major impacts on carbon emissions and water and land use. Rice's profile is particularly noticeable, given its high methane emissions combined with a large level of wastage.

• While meat wastage volumes in all world regions is comparatively low, the meat sector generates a substantial impact on the environment in terms of land occupation and carbon footprint, especially in high-income countries and Latin America, which in combination account for 80 percent of all meat wastage. Excluding Latin America, high-income regions are responsible for about 67 percent of all meat wastage

• Fruit wastage contributes significantly to water waste in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, mainly as a result of extremely high wastage levels.

• Similarly, large volumes of vegetable wastage in industrialized Asia, Europe, and South and South East Asia translates into a large carbon footprint for that sector.

Extent of food losses and waste

Extent of food losses and waste

Extent of food losses and waste

Extent of food losses and waste

Causes and Prevention of food losses and waste

• Poor storage facilities, packaging and lack of infrastructure cause postharvest food losses in developing countries.

Prevention: investment in infrastructure, packaging and transportation.

• Unsafe food is not fit for human consumption and therefore is wasted.

Prevention: develop knowledge and capacity of food chain operators to apply safe food handling practices.

• Lack of processing facilities causes high food losses in developing countries.

Prevention: - improve investment climate for agro-industry

- develop contract farming linkages between processors and farmer

Food waste harms climate, water, land and biodiversity

• 11 September 2013-1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report.

• Among its key findings: Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet's atmosphere.

RECYCLING

• Primary (closed loop) recycling: materials are turned into new products of the same type.

• Secondary recycling: materials are converted into different products.

• Used tires shredded and converted into rubberized road surface.

• Newspapers transformed into cellulose insulation.

Conversion to Less Hazardous Substances

• Biological Methods: • Bioremediation: bacteria or enzymes help

destroy toxic and hazardous waste or convert them to more benign substances.

• Phytoremediation: involves using natural or genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter and remove contaminants from polluted soil and water.

The use of food waste as a protein source for animal feed - current status and technological development in Japan

Other method• Ensiling is another method of processing food waste for feed. However,

it is not practically utilized in swine production due to: 1) cost of preparation and transportation of silage, and 2) silage cannot be delivered through conventional feeding systems for concentrate feed.

• Liquid feeding is not popular in Japan in comparison with the situation in Europe. There are only a few farmers using liquid feed from food waste. It requires a high investment to renew the feeding system. However, it has great potential to exploit high moisture food waste as an animal feed. As dehydration of the food waste is unnecessary, the cost of processing is considerably lower and little protein is lost during the low temperature process

• Fermented liquid feeding is a process that involves fermentation to decrease pH and extend shelf life. During the process of fermentation, anti-nutritional factors, such as phytate and non starch polysaccharide, can be broken down by either endogenous or exogenous enzymes

• The dry matter of products processed by these methods ranged from 70 to 97 percent. Farmers can feed it to swine without any modification of their feeding system if feed composition is appropriate, or the products can be used as ingredients for commercial concentrate feeds.

• In Sapporo city, the Sapporo Kitchen Garbage Recycle Centre was set up. This collects 50 tonnes of garbage from a total of 188 schools, hospitals and companies and processes it into dehydrated feed by fry-cooking. Fry cooking is a new system of dehydrating food waste according to the method of Templar 21[4] in which it is cooked in waste vegetable oil under reduced pressure at relatively low temperature (about 110°C).

BIOGAS

• Mixture of gases.• Produced by anaerobic digestion of organic matter.• Consist of CH4 ,CO2 ,traces of H2 & other gases.

Composition of Biogas

Types

GAS HOLDER• Fixed dome type• Floating drum type

FREQUENCY OF FILLING SUBSTRATE

• Batch type

• Continuous type

Floating-drum type

MICROBIOLOGY OF BIOGAS

4 steps Hydrolysis Acidogenesis Acetogenesis Methanogenesis

Results in further breakdown of the remaining components by acidogenic bacteria.

Ammonia, H2, CO2, H2S, shorter volatile fatty acids, carbonic acids, alcohols, as well as trace amounts of other byproducts produced

Simple molecules created through the acidogenesis phase further digested to acetic acid, carbon dioxide and hydrogen.Acetogenic bacteria

Factors affecting methane formation.

• pH• Temperature• Nitrogen concentration• C:N ratio• Creation of anaerobic conditions

• 6-8• Acidic medium lowers methane formation.

• Temperature• Fluctuation ↓ methane formation – inhibit

growth of methanogens.• 30-40oC

pH

• ↑ N2 - ↓ growth of bacteria - ↓ CH4

C:N ratio

• Micro organisms in a biogas plant needs both N nitrogen and C carbon.

• Research has shown that the methanogenic bacteria work best with a C/N ratio 30:1.

Nitrogen concentration

Different Purification Processes

1) Removal of H2S - • The gas coming out of system is heated to

150 degree C • and over ZnO bed, maintained at 1800 C

leaving process gas free of H2S. • ZnO + H2S = ZnS + H2O. • ZnSO4 + 2NaOH = Zn (OH) 2 + Na2SO4

Different Purification Processes

2) Removal of CO2 – • CO2 is high corrosive when wet and it has no

combustion • value so its removal is must to improve the

biogas quality. • The processes to remove CO2 are as follows – • a) Caustic solution, NAOH – 40% • NAOH + CO2 = NAHCO3 • b) Renfield process – K2CO3 - 30 % • K2CO3 + CO2 = 2KCO3

Different Purification Processes

3) Removal of NH3:- • The chemical reaction is as: • NH3 + HCL =NH4Cl

4) Removal of H2O:- • For the removal of moisture, pass the gas

from above • reaction, through the crystals of white

silica gel.

Organic FertilizerImportance of Slurry for Crop Production

Organic matter plays an important role because of its beneficial effects in supplying plant nutrients, enhancing the cation exchange capacity, improving soil aggregation, increasing water holding capacity of soils, stabilizing its humic content and increasing its water holding

capacity.

Organic soil amendments support biological activities and also control root pathogens.

Biogas slurry has proved to be a high quality organic manure Compared to FYM, digested slurry will have more nutrients, because in FYM, the nutrients are lost by volatilization (especially nitrogen) due to exposure to sun (heat) as well as by leaching.

Characteristics of Digested Slurry

• Only approximately 10 percent of the total nitrogen content in fresh dung is readily available for plant growth A major portion of it has first to be biologically transformed in the soil and is only then gradually released for plant use.

• When fresh cow dung dries, approximately 30 to 50 percent of the nitrogen escapes within 10 days. While nitrogen escaping from digested slurry within the same period amounts to only 10 to 15 percent Therefore, the value of slurry as fertilizer, if used directly in the field as it comes out of the plant, is higher than when it is used after being stored and drie d

Other Uses

• Many extensive experiments performed in China have proved that the digested slurry, when used as fertilizer, has strong effects on plant tolerance to diseases such as potato wilt (Pseudomonas salanacearum. late blight, cauliflower mosaic, etc. and thus can be used as bio-chemical pesticide.

Other use

• the coldresistant property of early season rice seedling are effectively enhanced by soaking seeds with digested slurry.

The survival rate increased by 8 to 13 percent and the quality of seedlings raised by soaking seeds with digested slurry is much higher than that of the control group during the recovering period after low temperature stress. The seedlings germinated faster, grew well and resisted diseases (Biogas Technology In China, 1989).

Other use

• Foliar application of diluted slurry increases rate of wheat plant growth,

• in grapes have been found to increase yield, length of fruityear,sugar content, fruit size, colour, and resistance to mildew diseases.

• In cucumbers, it has been observed to increase resistance to wilt diseases.

• In peach, it develops better fruit colour and early maturation.

Other use

• Digested slurry can effectively control the spreading and occurrence of cotton's weathered disease. It decreases the rate of the disease with an efficiency rate of 50 percent for one year. 70 percent for more than two years along with increase in production.

• Wheat aphids are effectively cured when digested slurry mixed with a 30 to 40 percent of Rogor is sprayed saving the cost of Rogor chemical which also has an adverse environmental impact.

Reference

• FOOD INDUSTRYWASTES ASSESSMENT ANDRECUPERATION OF COMMODITIES

• Toolkit of FAO• Sustainability Pathways Food loss and waste (FAO)• PROTEIN SOURCES FOR THE ANIMAL FEED INDUSTRY• IranWheat MainFrame• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations  News Article• FAO - News Article  Food waste harms climate, water, land and

biodiversity – new FAO report• FAO - detail  Waste Not, Want Not• C FAO recycle• From Farm to Fork to Landfill- Food Waste and Consumption in Amer

Reference

• Causes and prevention of food losses and waste• BIOGAS TECHNOLOGY • UTILIZAITON OF SLURRY AS FEED AND FERTILIZER (FAO/TC• P/NEP/4415-T)• Food Manufacturing - Impact on the environment

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