Urban food waste generation : challenges and opportunities

Benu Adhikari (1) , S. Barrington (1) , José Martinez (2)

1 Department of bioresource engineering
2 UR GERE - Gestion environnementale et traitement biologique des déchets

Greater economic activity and a wider economic gap between rural and urban areas is leading to accelerated urbanisation and the generation of 35% more Urban Food Waste (UFW) from 2007 to 2025. Besides landfilling, this paper examines the advantages of introducing onsite composting and anaerobic digestion for the environmental recycling of UFW and the lowering of handling cost. For Asia and Africa, these solutions for UFW could reduce the mass of MSW by 43% and 55%, respectively, thus help there cities manage almost all of their MSW. For North America and Europe, such practice could reduce earth warming trends.

Keywords: METHANE; COMPOST; ORDURE MENAGERE; DECHARGE; ENGRAIS; DECHET AGROALIMENTAIRE; URBAN; MSW; MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE; FOOD WASTE; LANDFILL; FERTILISER; COMMUNITY

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Benu Adhikari, S. Barrington, José Martinez. Urban food waste generation : challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2009, 3 (1/2), p. 4 - p. 21. ⟨10.1504/IJEWM.2009.024696⟩. ⟨hal-00615443⟩