Environmental Pressures Generated by Bakery Waste for Sustainable Management

Abstract

One of the largest water users in Europe and the USA is the bakery industry. Daily water consumption in the bakery industry varies from 10.000 to 300.000 buckets of 10 L / day. Half of this amount is discharged as wastewater. Another aspect is the manufacture of bakery and pastry products, which have in their composition various raw materials that must be processed before forming a finished product. The results in various pollutants, waste, wastewater and noise pollution. These pollutants cannot even be called dangerous, toxic, or harmful, but they do participate to some extent in environmental pollution and have a negative impact on the population and animals. Waste from the bakery industry contains high levels of organic matter, fats, oils, greases and solids, which could be treated or reduced by implementing proper waste management.The recovery of bakery waste can play an important role in their management. Waste that can be managed consists mainly of bread, buns and outdated cakes (all of which contain a high level of energy) can be fed directly to animals such as pigs and cattle. Another application is the use of waste for the production of environmentally friendly products. Bakery waste can be successfully used to produce lactic acid with a conversion efficiency of 47.2%.The general objective of this paper was to critically analyze the current perspectives on waste management, from the bakery industry, in order to select environmentally friendly and high-performance alternatives, in terms of technical and economic criteria.This analysis helped us to create a database for future analyzes which consist in the application of support tools for technical-economic and environmental assessment of bakery waste management alternatives.