Food Waste Diversion Research Articles

Recycle Florida Today and Florida Organics Recyclers Association: Then, Now, and Beyond

In 1988, the Florida Legislature passed the Solid Waste Management Act that affected the solid waste disposal practices of every county in the state. With legislation directly affecting the industry, organic recyclers and Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) regulators recognized a need to establish a professional organization that could serve as a unified industry voice, and foster high standards and ethics in the business of recycling and reuse of organic materials. In December 1994, a meeting was held to discuss the formulation of a Florida organic recycling association which became known as the Florida Organics Recyclers Association (FORA). FORA's first major contribution to the industry was the development of a recycling best management practice manual for yard trash in 1996. The second major project undertaken by FORA was a food waste diversion project which sought to promote an increase in food waste recovery and reuse. In Spring 1999, FORA became the organic division of Recycling Florida Today (RFT) further unifying recycling efforts within the State of Florida. In an attempt to address mounting concerns regarding industry marketing and promotional needs, RFT/FORA developed an organic recycling facility directory for the State of Florida in Spring 2000. Most recently RFT/FORA developed an organic recycling facility operator training course outline to assist the FDEP in identifying industry training needs. From its modest beginnings in 1994, to future joint programming efforts with the University of Florida's Florida Organic Recycling Center for Excellence (FORCE), RFT/FORA continues to emerge as a viable conduit of educational information for public and private agencies relative to organic recycling in Florida.

Case studies

This paper introduces a comprehensive model developed to assess the carbon footprint of integrated solid waste management systems including the diversion at source of the food waste component into the wastewater/sludge management systems using household food waste disposers. In addition to the current state of practice in developed economies, the model includes emissions from waste management processes still practiced in developing economies (such as open dumping, open burning, poorly operated landfills with flaring systems and auxiliary fuel needed to satisfy the low heating value (LHV) during incineration) commonly not considered in most life cycle assessment (LCA)-based models. It can disaggregate emissions by source (from collection to final disposal), or type (direct-operating, indirect-upstream, indirect-downstream), or gas (CH4, CO2, N2O) and offers users the flexibility to select processes or modify input parameters while examining their impact on uncertainty in model simulations. Equally important is a clarity in deriving and applying emission factors used to quantify emissions from waste management systems. The model was tested in the context of developed and developing economies to assess the impact of waste composition, management processes, energy consumption and other parameters on variations in emissions. The results demonstrated that best practices through material recycling, biological treatment, food waste diversion, and/or energy recovery can contribute to significant savings in emissions that ranged between 24 and 95%, depending on the tested systems. In closure, we argue the benefits of the model application in providing guidelines for policy planning and decision making about process viability for investing in carbon credit.