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Intelligent Building and Environmental Controls for Futuristic Smart Cities Powered by Cyber Physical Intelligence
Published in G.R. Karpagam, B. Vinoth Kumar, J. Uma Maheswari, Xiao-Zhi Gao, Smart Cyber Physical Systems, 2020
Rajesh Harinarayan Rajasekaran, Rajkumar Krishnan, Mercy Shalinie Selvaraj
Food wastage is high in today’s world, as the number of mouths to feed has increased. Food is wasted at all stages of the food chain, from agricultural production, in transit, in markets and in residential buildings or hotels, where it is ultimately consumed. Food waste comes under the category of organic waste, and it could be recycled into compost or manure (after feeding to farm animals) for farms, thus avoiding it ending up in landfills. But we all know that prevention is better than cure, and we could reduce food waste if we could predict the demand for food. This prediction task is hard for a human, but a cyber physical intelligent system can predict, using data and machine learning algorithms. The research by Sakoda et al. (2019) [21] provides optimized stock management through demand estimation. The demand estimation is achieved through statistical models that are inputted with point-of-sales data. Through this research, food waste is avoided to a large extent, while the economic benefit to the target building is also increased.
Moving Beyond the ‘What’ and ‘How Much’ to the ‘Why’
Published in Christian Reynolds, Tammara Soma, Charlotte Spring, Jordon Lazell, Routledge Handbook of Food Waste, 2020
Laura C. Moreno, Jordon Lazell, Vicki Mavrakis, Belinda Li
Beyond methane emissions from landfills, the impacts of wasted food are many. The resources and pollutants associated with food production, including energy, water, and greenhouse gas emissions, are essentially ‘wasted’ when food goes uneaten (FAO, 2013). Prevention addresses the impacts of wasted food by maximising the amount of food eaten by people and minimising the generation of food waste. As such, prevention interventions tend to focus on the ‘avoidable’ or ‘edible’ portions of food waste. Common suggestions for food waste prevention in households include improving storage practices, better planning, and using all parts of food items (e.g. the broccoli stalk). Other suggestions, including reformatting date labels or offering smaller portion sizes, aim to change practices in other stages of the food supply chain to influence consumer-level food waste (Papargyropoulou et al., 2014; Thyberg & Tonjes, 2016).
Bio-based Carbon Materials for Anaerobic Digestion
Published in Paweł K. Zarzycki, Pure and Functionalized Carbon Based Nanomaterials, 2020
Kaijun Wang, Yasir Abbas, Sining Yun
For the traditional disposing method, composting food waste causes emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and landfills cause anaerobic decomposition of food waste that releases methane (Paritosh et al. 2017). As a more sustainable treatment, bio-based carbon materials fabricated from food waste have shown promising applications. Many researchers (Gupta et al. 2018, Kaushik et al. 2014, Saqib et al. 2018) have used hydrothermal carbonization or pyrolysis method to turn food waste into value added products, including hydrochar or pyrolytic carbon (solid product), bio-oil, and gases. So food waste is a qualified raw material for the synthesis of bio-based carbon materials.
Valorisation of vegetable food waste utilising three-dimensional food printing
Published in Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 2023
Aakanksha Pant, Phoebe Xin Ni Leam, Chee Kai Chua, U-Xuan Tan
Food wastage has become a topic that is highly discussed as countries move towards a sustainable future and securing food for future generations (Leroy et al. 2015). The accumulation of food waste has affected the environment detrimentally due to the constant consumption of resources and the endless release of greenhouse gas emissions. Food waste is often produced along the food supply chain resulting in a third being disposed of globally (Stuart 2009). Food waste generation is much more prominent at the consumer level in the developed countries (FAO 2011). Due to the scarcity of land resources, Singapore is highly dependent on imports, and at least 40% of these imports are lost as food waste. From farm to market, a total of $2.54 billion worth of food was wasted annually, with $342 million lost from households. One in three residents in Singapore would dispose of 10% of purchased food weekly. This food waste contaminates recyclables and also creates stench and vector breeding problems that disrupt people’s way of life (SEC 2019). These food wastes added up to one of the top five largest waste stream produced (NEA 2019).
Multi-agent architecture for waste minimisation in beef supply chain
Published in Production Planning & Control, 2023
Ai Ha Thi Nguyen, Akshit Singh, Sushma Kumari, Sonal Choudhary
It is estimated that one-third of the aggregate food produced globally (∼1.3 billion tonnes/annum) ends up as waste (FAO 2019a). It directly impacts some of the crucial issues across the globe. The foremost is that around 820 million people are suffering from chronic hunger thereby creating a bottleneck in achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal no. 2- Zero Hunger (FAO 2019b). The food wasted within the supply chain could be utilised to feed them. There are also environmental implications of wasting food as lots of resources (land, water, and energy) are being exploited for producing it. The food waste generated is also being disposed to landfills leading to the generation of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas, leading to global warming. According to IPCC, ∼10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to food waste (IPCC 2019). Besides, the food wasted along the supply chain financially affects all the stakeholders of the supply chain including customers, which has been estimated to be around US$1 trillion (FAO 2019c). Sustainable consumption and production are one of the most pressing challenges in this sector and is in line with UN SDG number 12- Responsible Consumption and Production. Mitigation of food waste could play a pivotal role in strengthening the fortunes of global food industries and thereby national economies around the world.
Life cycle assessment of food waste management options: a case study at campus level to foster sustainable campus
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2023
Merve Tunali, Volkan Coban, Ahmet Baban, Nilgün Kıran Cılız
Being one of the major types of waste streams in municipal waste (Kaza et al. 2018), food waste generation is estimated to reach 1.3–1.6 billion tonnes globally per year, one-third coming from the food produced for human consumption (FAO 2020). While the percentage of food waste is variable among different locations, e.g. 20% for Europe (Sanchez Lopez et al. 2020) and 30–40% for the USA (USDA 2022), it is indeed a global problem being one of the sources of global greenhouse gases. Ritchie (2020) stated that 26% and 6% of the total emissions come from food production and food losses and waste, respectively. Food waste management options should be systemized and optimized to prevent the problems related to the overproduction of organic waste, and waste related environmental issues. There are several common practices for food waste management such as landfilling, composting, and anaerobic digestion.2020