Food Waste: Treatments, Environmental Impacts, Current and Potential Uses

Persistence and remote sensing of agri-food wastes in the environment: Current state and perspectives

Food demand is expected to increase globally by 60-110% from 2005 to 2050 due to diet shifts and population growth. This growth in food demand leads to the generation of enormous agri-food wastes (AFWs), which could be classified into pre-consumption and post-consumption. The AFW represents economic losses for all stakeholders along food supply chains, including consumers. It is reported that the direct financial, social, and environmental costs of food waste are 1, 0.9, and 0.7 trillion USD/year, respectively. Diverse conventional AFW management approaches are employed at the different life cycle levels (entre supply chain). The review indicates that inadequate transportation, erroneous packaging, improper storage, losses during processing, contamination, issues with handling, and expiry dates are the main reason for the generation of AFWs in the supply chain. Further, various variables such as cultural, societal, personal, and behavioral factors contribute to the AFW generation. The selection of a specific valorization technology is based on multiple physicochemical and biological parameters. Furthermore, other factors like heterogeneity of the AFWs, preferable energy carriers, by-products management, cost, end-usage applications, and environmental legislative and disposal processes also play a crucial role in adopting suitable technology. Valorization of AFW could significantly impact both economy and the environment. AFWs have been widely investigated for the development of engineered added-value biomaterials and renewable energy production. Considering this, this study has been carried out to highlight the significance of AFW cost, aggregation, quantification, and membrane-based strategies for its management. The study also explored the satellite remote sensing data for Spatio-temporal monitoring, mapping, optimization, and management of AFW management. Along with this, the study also explained the most recent strategies for AFW valorization and outlined the detailed policy recommendation along with opportunities and challenges. The review suggested that AFW should be managed using a triple-bottom-line strategy (economic, social, and environmental sustainability).

Dietary Catering: The Perfect Solution for Rational Food Management in Households

The problem of food waste is a global phenomenon. Food waste occurs at all stages of the food chain. Households, especially in developed countries, produce the most food waste. In order to effectively prevent consumers from throwing food away, it is important to understand the factors that determine these behaviors in the household. The aim of this study was to define the goal of using dietary catering in Polish society as a form of consumption of wholesome meals with a specific calorific value and distribution of macronutrients in the aspect of reducing losses related to food waste. The research was carried out online in the years 2020–2022 among the clients of a catering company. The survey respondents were residents of the Małopolskie Voivodeship in Poland. The research tool was an original anonymous questionnaire in the form of a shortened nutritional interview. On the basis of the obtained results, it can be concluded that factors such as age and gender influence consumer behavior. The reasons for the decision to choose dietary catering were mainly indicated as wasting and throwing away food, as well as inadequate management of food supplies and preparing too large portions of meals.

Are the Slimmer More Wasteful? The Correlation between Body Mass Index and Food Wastage among Chinese Youth

With the economic growth and living standard improvement, food waste has become increasingly common among Chinese youth. To test whether body size affects the food waste performance of youth, we examined university students as representative of the Chinese youth and conducted a large-sample survey in 29 universities across 29 provinces. Based on 9192 questionnaires collected from Chinese college canteens, we found that body size was correlated with food waste. The smaller the body mass index (BMI) value, the higher the likelihood of plate waste, the higher the amount of waste, and the higher the ratio of food waste. Heterogeneity analyses revealed that BMI exerted a more significant impact on males than females, as well as a more substantial impact on northerners than southerners. Robust tests using other proxies to measure body size, robust regressions based on the new adjusted samples, and robust tests with an instrumental variable to overcome the endogenous issue suggested that the slimmer participants tended to be more wasteful. Hence, this study confirms that the slimmer youth tend to leave plate waste and waste more food per capita per meal. This study is the first attempt to analyze food wastage from the perspective of BMI in China to our best knowledge, and it provides a unique viewpoint for understanding young people’s food wastage.