Can Food Waste Become a Sustainable Energy Source?

    Energy is needed for every daily task, so why not make sure that the energy used is healthy for the planet that provides a living space to make these tasks possible? There are plenty of energy sources being used today, but are they all environmentally sustainable? The answer is no. A possible new source of energy that stood out was energy from food waste. In the United States, there is an estimated amount of 931 million tons of food that is thrown out to rot that comes from restaurants and food chains (Sridhar et al., 2021). When it comes down to fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat, 1.3 billion tons are thrown out. 
 There are several ways that food waste can be converted into energy. One way is incineration. Incineration is a technique that takes food waste and converts it into heat energy. This heat energy can be used to fuel heat exchangers or turbines that are used in process industries (Sridhar et al., 2021). Another way that it could be transferred into energy is through landfill-engineered reactors. Landfills produce fuels such as ammonia, CO2, and methane, which negatively contribute to climate change (Sridhar et al., 2021). Landfill-engineered reactors, however, are known to add moisture to the waste and liquidize organic waste to convert it into energy, without using many facilities (Sridhar et al., 2021). 
 There are plenty more ways to convert food waste into sustainable energy including composting, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, biochemical conversion technology, etc. (Sridhar et al., 2021). Food waste could either cause health problems as well as speed up the process of climate change or it could serve as the newest source of energy that replaces many of the harmful energy techniques that industrialization has created today, so why not utilize this sustainable source of energy?



Figure: A diagram exhibiting important methods that are used to created green energy ass opposed to harmful energy. Methods such as incineration, landfills, composting, and pyrolysis are included.


Reference:

Sridhar, A., Kapoor, A., Kumar, P. S., Ponnuchamy, M., Balasubramanian, S., & Prabhakar, S. (2021, July 4). Conversion of food waste to energy: A focus on sustainability and life cycle assessment. Fuel. Retrieved September 16, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236121009480?casa_token=WWHmixBEJy0AAAAA%3A716ARk0z5W58UHhKsxOnYBIZ_wlZVSzWGjaQcnO8dJQtZ799ygg5opm77nbsa6ltBDFig2Uvaw 

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