Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
At consumer's level
Even when food processors do not have control of the consumer's behavior, they can take
some actions to reduce the waste of food products once in hands of the consumer. Some poten-
tial ideas to reduce food wastes down the supply chain stream include:
Extend the shelf life of food products when possible.
Protect fats from rancidity by addition of efficient antioxidant systems.
Optimize and coordinate production, distribution, and sales so products reach the cus-
tomer at a high level of freshness.
Assure the cold chain is not interrupted.
Provide the best packaging to protect the food products. This needs to be balanced with the
environmental impact produced by the packaging.
Pack in sizes that can be consumed in a reasonable period of time.
Educate customers about the best way to keep products.
Managing nonfood wastes
At the field and farm levels
Crop residue
Traditionally, crop residues have been managed by returning some to the soil, using it as bed-
ding material, and as animal feed. The rest simply has been burned in the fields.
Even when this practice is widespread, burning is not the best for the environment and the
soil. Alternative strategies to crop residue burning are beyond the objectives of this topic, so
some methods will be mentioned briefly and readers with more interest in the topic may con-
sult specific literature on agricultural sustainability.
The most suggested alternatives to crop residue burning are as follows (McCarty, 2010):
Incorporation back into the soil, which requires tilling, that eventually could negatively
impact some areas. Crop residues returned to the soil prevent erosion, return nutrients to
the ground, and trap carbon for a short period of time.
Excess crop residues can be used off-site for soil amendment, erosion control, compost for
mushroom growing, energy production, and paper making.
If cellulosic ethanol ever becomes economically and environmentally feasible, crop resi-
dues could be used as feedstocks for production of bioethanol.
The main drawback of using off-site crop residues is transportation. These cellulosic mate-
rials have a low density and transportation is not efficient in terms of gallons of fuel use per
ton or residue. So, off-site utilization of crop residues normally is restricted to the vicinity of
where they are produced.
Manure
As was mentioned previously, the most common application of manure is fertilization of
fields. However, farms that raise animals produce more manure than what can be applied to
the soil in the vicinity of the farms, and because fresh manure contains large amounts of water,
it is expensive to transport long distances. In all likelihood, anaerobic digestion is the best
alternative for manure management. Advantages of anaerobic digestion are odor control,
greenhouse gas reduction, ammonia control, water quality protection, effective method of
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