Food Waste to Energy: An Overview of Sustainable Approaches for Food Waste Management and Nutrient Recycling

Abstract

Food wastage and its accumulation are becoming a critical problem around the globe due to continuous increase of the world population. The exponential growth in food waste is imposing serious threats to our society like environmental pollution, health risk, and scarcity of dumping land. There is an urgent need to take appropriate measures to reduce food waste burden by adopting standard management practices. Currently, various kinds of approaches are investigated in waste food processing and management for societal benefits and applications. Anaerobic digestion approach has appeared as one of the most ecofriendly and promising solutions for food wastes management, energy, and nutrient production, which can contribute to world's ever-increasing energy requirements. Here, we have briefly described and explored the different aspects of anaerobic biodegrading approaches for food waste, effects of cosubstrates, effect of environmental factors, contribution of microbial population, and available computational resources for food waste management researches.

Figure 1

(a) Worldwide generation of food waste in developed and developing countries. (b) Worldwide bioenergy potential from FW in developed and developing countries. (c) Per capita food waste generation in developed and developing countries.

Figure 2

Typical wasted foods in world and in Asia.

Figure 3

Anaerobic digestion phases.

Figure 4

Significance of the microbial population in anaerobic digester.