Food waste being repurposed
By Alice Park, Time
Nearly 1.5 billion tons. That’s how much spoiled and uneaten food people around the world throw out each year. In the U.S., roughly 40 percent of the food supply is wasted, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). But that kind of trash could soon become a lot more useful.
Building on efforts to turn grains and even human waste into biofuels and other valuable chemicals, Carol Lin, a biochemical engineer at the City University of Hong Kong, is developing a new kind of biorefinery. To head off a crisis at Hong Kong’s landfills–they’re going to be full within five years–she and her team, in partnership with Starbucks and a number of recycling groups, are converting organic food waste (think old pastries, bread and coffee grounds) into succinic acid. That chemical is a key component of biodegradable plastics, and is used in everything from laundry-detergent bottles to food additives to car parts.
The implications for the environment are huge. Succinic acid is currently made from petrochemicals in a process that leaves a harmful carbon footprint, and the U.S. Department of Energy has listed the chemical as one of a dozen that could be made more responsibly through bio-based processes. Although Lin’s program is still in the pilot phase, companies in Europe, Asia and the U.S. are launching similar efforts to turn wasted food into a potentially valuable commodity. Lin is confident that the cost of the processing–it doesn’t require any specialized tools–will make it a viable method for producing the acid.
She faces plenty of hurdles. Because food waste isn’t as easy to transport (unlike petroleum, it starts to rot), researchers are still figuring out how to set up hygienic ways to process it quickly. Then there’s the issue of scale: in her lab, Lin generates 81 kg of succinic acid from each ton of food waste she processes — a tiny fraction of the 44,000 tons manufacturers demand each year. But, says Allen Hershkowitz of NRDC, it’s essential to keep trying. “No single undertaking is going to address all the waste we generate.” But if this one can make good use of your stale muffin, that’s a big step in the right direction.
At least South Lake Tahoe is ‘ahead-of-the-curve’ on this one (still only partially), as a “food waste diversion” (compost) program was created with STR & Full Circle Compost as “bookends” to the participation of our corporate hospitality folks – Embassy, both Marriotts, Aramark (Zephyr Cove & both paddlewheelers) – for over 2 1/2 years now – with the ultimate goal of creating a Community Garden facility to serve as a community gathering place in the production of as much of our own fresh produce as possible, as a food security issue.
This program is working like a Swiss watch: no muss, no fuss, no drama, which of course why I felt the necessity to credit this effort in the context of the above article.
The project came from the guidelines of the City’s own Sustainable Action Plan, adopted “officially” in 2008, using Item # 9, Healthy Food Systems, as a template.
Now if we could only get the needed support for the next step, that of the planned facility, Tahoe could continue in the forefront of having their own Healthy Food System for all who live or visit here. The citizens deserve it. . .