Environmental and health impacts of using food waste as animal feed: a comparative analysis of food waste management options

Abstract

The disposal of food waste is a large environmental problem. In the United Kingdom (UK), approximately 15 million tonnes of food are wasted each year, mostly disposed of in landfill, via composting, or anaerobic digestion (AD). European Union (EU) guidelines state that food waste should preferentially be used as animal feed though for most food waste this practice is currently illegal, because of disease control concerns. Interest in the potential diversion of food waste for animal feed is however growing, with a number of East Asian states offering working examples of safe food waste recycling – based on tight regulation and rendering food waste safe through heat treatment. This study investigates the potential benefits of diverting food waste for pig feed in the UK. A hybrid, consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to compare the environmental and health impacts of four technologies for food waste processing: two technologies of South Korean style-animal feed production (as a wet pig feed and a dry pig feed) were compared with two widespread UK disposal technologies: AD and composting. Results of 14 mid-point impact categories show that the processing of food waste as a wet pig feed and a dry pig feed have the best and second-best scores, respectively, for 13/14 and 12/14 environmental and health impacts. The low impact of food waste feed stems in large part from its substitution of conventional feed, the production of which has substantial environmental and health impacts. While the re-legalisation of the use of food waste as pig feed could offer environmental and public health benefits, this will require support from policy makers, the public, and the pig industry, as well as investment in separated food waste collection which currently occurs in only a minority of regions.

Livestock Feed Production from Sago Solid Waste by Pretreatment and Anaerobic Fermentation Process

“…This reason is causing for seeking alternative sources, environmentally friendly, economically acceptable, and socially acceptable non-conventional feed sources [4]. The livestock feed should also be able to become a mainstay feed in the long term.…”

Assessment of Economical Biogas Production From Chilean Municipal Solid Waste in a Decentralized Off-Grid Strategy

“…Furthermore, produced biogas is substituted for fossil fuels and consequently another reduction of GHG emissions must be considered. (Salemdeeb et al, 2017), effluent should be dewatered and refined, which leads to a more complex design. On the contrary, if the effluent is directly used as fertilizer, without further treatments, some problems such as pathogens, antibiotics and/or heavy metals, among others, might be expected in the long term.…”

A Parameter Selection Framework for Sustainability Assessment

“…Stringent treatment is required, particularly where animal by-products are present, such as pasteurization at 70 • C for 1 h or with thermophilic digestion, with a guaranteed retention of 5 h at 53 • C. This ensures the destruction of communicable diseases such as spongiform encephalopathy and foot and mouth disease, and also results in a reduction in viable weed seeds, reducing the need for herbicide use [47]. As such human, terrestrial and aquatic toxicity are of low concern when it comes to the use of AD treatment of food waste and its by-products [48,62,64,65].…”

“…The fossil fuel used for the collection and transport of food waste and any grid based demand for plant operation should be accounted for [64][65][66]. The energy requirements associated with the collections, transport, pre-treatment, operation and post-treatment stages of an AD scheme can vary significantly depending on the technical configuration of the plant and its operating conditions.…”