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Review
. 2021 Feb 19;19(2):116.
doi: 10.3390/md19020116.

Fish Waste: From Problem to Valuable Resource

Daniela Coppola  1 , Chiara Lauritano  1 , Fortunato Palma Esposito  1 , Gennaro Riccio  1 , Carmen Rizzo  1 , Donatella de Pascale  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Fish Waste: From Problem to Valuable Resource

Daniela Coppola et al. Mar Drugs. .

Abstract

Following the growth of the global population and the subsequent rapid increase in urbanization and industrialization, the fisheries and aquaculture production has seen a massive increase driven mainly by the development of fishing technologies. Accordingly, a remarkable increase in the amount of fish waste has been produced around the world; it has been estimated that about two-thirds of the total amount of fish is discarded as waste, creating huge economic and environmental concerns. For this reason, the disposal and recycling of these wastes has become a key issue to be resolved. With the growing attention of the circular economy, the exploitation of underused or discarded marine material can represent a sustainable strategy for the realization of a circular bioeconomy, with the production of materials with high added value. In this study, we underline the enormous role that fish waste can have in the socio-economic sector. This review presents the different compounds with high commercial value obtained by fish byproducts, including collagen, enzymes, and bioactive peptides, and lists their possible applications in different fields.

Keywords: bioactive peptides; chitin; collagen; enzymes; fish byproduct valorization; fish waste; marine sustainable sources; oil.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Summary of the main extraction methods and further processing technologies used to obtain high-commercial value compounds from fish byproducts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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