Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
concerned and on the destination of the waste. Waste from agro-food industries
is generally found on the 'green list', subject to the condition that it is not infec-
tious, which should enable much useful food waste to be transported. A poten-
tial policy and regulatory disincentive to the reprocessing of food wastes into
chemical substances is the dovetailing of end-of-waste status and chemical sub-
stances legislation, most notably through the major new REACH (Registration,
Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of CHemicals) legislation affecting
chemicals manufactured or used in the EU (see Section 1.4). The testing and
administrative costs of achieving a registration under REACH are considerable;
cost sharing by co-registration is only partially successful as many companies
are reluctant to collaborate in areas where they are competing (e.g. over the sale
of the same substance). This is a major disincentive for industry and producers
in the EU, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) producing novel
substances resulting from food waste reprocessing who may find the compli-
ance costs of REACH legislation a major barrier to commercialising the pro-
cess. With other major economies outside the EU also showing interest in
adopting similar legislation to REACH (including the US, where current legisla-
tion is variable from state to state, and China), manufacturing and distribution
outside of the EU will have to overcome this potential barrier.
1.3.2
The Food Supply Chain Waste Opportunity
Alternative feedstocks to conventional fossil raw materials have attracted increas-
ing interest over recent years for the manufacture of chemicals, fuels and materi-
als [16]. In the case of biomass as a renewable source of carbon, feedstocks
including agricultural and forestry residues are converted into valuable marketa-
ble products, ideally by using a series of sustainable and low-environmental-
impact technologies, so that the resulting products are genuinely green and
sustainable. The facilities where such transformations take place are often referred
to as biorefineries, the focus of this topic [17].
Food supply chain waste (FSCW) is emerging as a biomass resource with sig-
nificant potential to be employed as a raw material for the production of fuels and
chemicals, given the abundant volumes globally generated and its inherent diver-
sity of functionalised chemical components [18].
Several motivating factors for the development of advanced valorisation practices
on residues and by-products of food waste are available, such as the abundance,
ready availability, under-utilisation and renewable nature of the significant quanti-
ties of functionalised molecules including carbohydrates, proteins, triglycerides,
fatty acids and phenolics. Various waste streams also contain valuable compounds
including antioxidants, which could be recovered, concentrated and re-used in
applications such as food and lubricants additives. Examples of such types of wastes
and associated 'corresponding target ingredient for recovery' have been used to
highlight the potential of FSCW as a source of valuable chemical components [19].
