Anaerobic Digestion in the Nexus of Energy, Water and Food

Abstract

Conventional waste management practices focusing principally on waste collection, treatment and disposal or even minimisation often prove insufficient to address resource management challenges in a sustainable manner. Taking into account the relationship between water provision, energy security and resource efficiency, a systems approach that delivers a strong information basis and provides opportunities for resource use optimisation at various levels of application provides opportunities for synergies that could deliver real benefits when cross-sectoral solutions are applied. By-products from sewage treatment in combination with organic solid waste such as food waste can provide a valuable source of energy if managed properly and utilised effectively. This way, waste can be seen as a raw material than can be turned into a resource rather than simply be discarded. As such, AD (anaerobic digestion), the co-digestion of food waste with sewage sludge, could become a strategic and cross-sectoral solution, if carefully applied, with the potential to convey beneficial synergies for the water and the waste industries. However, barriers to the development of such systems are diverse and often interlinked. Institutional frameworks, decision making constraints, and regulatory boundaries might still appear to require an answer for three different problems, but this can be overcome if presented as just three different parts of the same answer. Such synergies could deliver economic benefits from the additional renewable energy generated and its associated incentives, and savings on costs for the infrastructure required for the exclusive digestion of food waste.