Abstract
A considerable amount of food waste ends up in centralized treatment plants due to the lack of preventive measures, resulting in significant environmental impacts. Hospitality food waste management is even more resource-intensive because of animal by-products regulation. According to this regulation, companies must store and then consign waste to specific waste managers. The extensive need for transportation of high-moisture-content materials is the leading cause of the impact. Moreover, the management of category III animal by-products is costly for companies. A previous study has shown the economic benefits of decentralized animal by-product treatment by intensive composting in catering companies. Although the produced compost was characterized by exceptional quality parameters, it was phytotoxic. The investigation of hospitality waste management is scarcely discussed among scholars, and waste management on a regional scale is nearly absent. This study examines the regional management of hospitality food waste by exploiting the municipal waste management infrastructure and intensive composting at the source. The co-maturation experiment with animal by-products and municipal green waste primary composts showed that the phytotoxicity parameters of the cured compost were in the optimal range or below the thresholds (conductivity (1.1 mS cm−1), dissolved organic carbon (82 mg kg−1), and NH4+/NO3− ratio (0.0027)). Additionally, the amounts of total nitrogen, water-soluble nitrogen, and water-soluble phosphorus in the compost were rated as very high. Finally, inventory and environmental impact analysis of the current and planned management approaches showed a reduction in 12 of 18 impact categories.
Highlights
Food waste (FW) is a major concern, and its quantity will most likely increase in parallel with population growth
This study investigates the possibility of improving the environmental and economic performance of catering Category III animal by-products (ABPs) management in a region by applying industrial symbiosis compared to conventional ABP management
Technology applied for the ABPs2 and ABPs3 treatments used halophiles, which are effective under extreme conditions such as low pH (5 mS cm−1 ), and temperature (>55 ◦ C), potentially influencing the swift mineralization of biomass [31]
Summary
Food waste (FW) is a major concern, and its quantity will most likely increase in parallel with population growth. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United. Nations (FAO) has forecasted that by 2050, food production will increase by over 70 % to feed 9.1 billion people [1]. This growth would definitely result in a substantial generation of FW, considering that nearly one-third of food is currently wasted [2]. As the Boston Consulting Group states, this wastage could increase from 1.6 to 2.1 billion tons by 2030 if the current tendency does not change [3]. There is a need for conventional but sustainable end-of-pipe treatment methods
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