Food waste composting

ME-01 Develop an Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan ME-02 Start or Enhance a Waste Reduction or Recycling Program ME-03 Start or Enhance a Green Procurement Program (GPP) ME-04 Separate and Compost Food Waste... 

Organic materials may also be placed in a layer over garden soil and allowed to compost where they are to be used. This is called sheet composting. A more detailed discussion of composting is available in Extension PB 1479, Composting Yard, Garden and Food Wastes at Home. ... 

Start a compost pile as an alternative method of disposing of food waste instead of using a garbage disposal, which both consumes a lot of water and places food matter in water rather than in soil, where it belongs. 

Arancon, N. Q., Edwards, C. A., Atiyeh, R. M., and Metzger, J. D. (2004). Effects of vermi-composts produced from food waste on the growth and yields of greenhouse peppers. Bioresource Technol. 93(2), 139-144. 

PLA is also finding growing use in the manufacture of thermoformed disposable serviceware. Because of its compostability, cups and containers made from PLA can be collected with food waste and transported to an appropriate commercial composting facility. Cups also feature high gloss and clarity, strength and excellent printability. 

Nodax coating can also be applied to foodservice articles such as cups, plates, and placemats. When it comes to disposal, Nodax is complimentary with composting of food waste. Its fast anaerobic degradability means these materials can be disposed of in marine or other low oxygen environments. The ideal market opportunities are found in closed loop environments such as theme park landfills, cruise and navy ships. 

Odour mitigation in the food industry, sewage treatment plants, animal carcass rendering plants, composting plants, waste disposal plants and refuse pits. 

Composting—The process by which organic waste, such as yard waste, food waste, and paper, is broken down by microorganisms and turned into a useful product for improving soil. 

Riggle, D. (1989). Revival time for composting food industry wastes. BioCycle 29, 35-37. 

In the USA alone, more than 91 billion pounds of edible food (27% of what is produced for consumption) are lost each year by the retail, consumer, and food service industries, almost all of which is unrecoverable [1]. Composting is one recovery path however, it is time-eonsuming, location-dependent, and subject to contamination. At Purdue University, food waste from eafeteria trays is discarded separately from other trash and accounts for approximately 150 tons of food waste from residence halls and the Union. This does not inelude the waste from food prep. It is estimated that 340 tons per year of food waste is thrown in dumpsters or trash bins on Purdue campus (J. Zarate, West Lafayette, IN, 2006, personal eommunication). 

Household and municipal solid waste compost also contains Cd that had its origins in agricultural soil. Composts consist of food wastes that have been microbially degraded. The food wastes contain trace amounts of Cd, most of which originated from the soil (Adriano, 2001). The degradation process results in compost with a much higher Cd concentration than the food wastes that went into it. Just like the farmyard manure, repeated applications of compost onto fields that were not the source of all of the Cd in the compost will result in localized increases in soil Cd concentration. However, the agricultural soils affected by compost application are in the minority, since compost is applied mainly to soils around urban areas. 

Thermoplastic starch is also blended with other polymers to improve its properties for particular applications. For example, a bag for collection of household food waste for composting that readily dissolved when it got wet would not function very well In applications such as this, the resins used for blending are also biodegradable, so that they do not interfere with the composting operation. In other cases, starch is blended with nonbiodegradable resins such as polyolefins. 

There are numerous options for food waste valorization technologies available around the world, such as composting, animal feed production, incineration for energy production and anaerobic digestion for biogas... 

Generally, composting is a natural process of microbial decomposition of organic matter that occurs in aerobic conditions. Food waste can be degraded into available nutrients for the growth of plants in the process, so composting therefore is a very common technology to return food waste to soil. 

Generally speaking, composting is able to return food waste to the soil as a soil fertilizer, which can improve the yields and the crop quality by increasing the water holding capacity and water infiltration rates of the soil and also reducing the bulk density, erosion potential, usage of herbicides. 

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