Separate collection of household food waste for anaerobic degradation - Comparison of different techniques from a systems perspective

Journal Article · Tue May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2012 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2012.01.008· OSTI ID:21612962

Bernstad, A ^[1]; Cour Jansen, J la ^[1]

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1. Water and Environmental Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Lund University (Sweden)

Highlight: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Four modern and innovative systems for household food waste collection are compared. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Direct emissions and resource use were based on full-scale data. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Conservation of nutrients/energy content over the system was considered. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Systems with high energy/nutrient recovery are most environmentally beneficial. - Abstract: Four systems for household food waste collection are compared in relation the environmental impact categories eutrophication potential, acidification potential, global warming potential as well as energy use. Also, a hotspot analysis is performed in order to suggest improvements in each of the compared collection systems. Separate collection of household food waste in paper bags (with and without drying prior to collection) with use of kitchen grinders and with use of vacuum system in kitchen sinks were compared. In all cases, food waste was used for anaerobic digestion with energy and nutrient recovery in all cases. Compared systems all resulted in net avoidance of assessed environmental impact categories; eutrophication potential (-0.1 to -2.4 kg NO{sub 3}{sup -}eq/ton food waste), acidification potential (-0.4 to -1.0 kg SO{sub 2}{sup -}eq/ton food waste), global warming potential (-790 to -960 kg CO{sub 2}{sup -}eq/ton food waste) and primary energy use (-1.7 to -3.6 GJ/ton food waste). Collection with vacuum system results in the largest net avoidance of primary energy use, while disposal of food waste in paper bags for decentralized drying before collection result in a larger net avoidance of global warming, eutrophication and acidification. However, both these systems not have been taken into use in large scale systems yet and further investigations are needed in order to confirm the outcomes from the comparison. Ranking of scenarios differ largely if considering only emissions in the foreground system, indicating the importance of taking also downstream emissions into consideration when comparing different collection systems. The hot spot identification shows that losses of organic matter in mechanical pretreatment as well as tank connected food waste disposal systems and energy in drying and vacuum systems reply to the largest impact on the results in each system respectively.

• OSTI ID: 21612962
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Journal Name: Waste Management Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 32; ISSN WAMAE2; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ACIDIFICATION
ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
BIOCONVERSION
CLIMATIC CHANGE
CONTAINERS
DIGESTION
DRYING
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
EUTROPHICATION
FOOD
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
HOT SPOTS
HOUSEHOLDS
MANAGEMENT
MATTER
NITRATES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NUTRIENTS
ORGANIC MATTER
ORGANIC WASTES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
TANKS
VACUUM SYSTEMS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES