Food wastage and its accumulation are becoming a critical problem around the globe due to continuous increase of the world population. The exponential growth in food waste is imposing serious threats to our society like environmental pollution, health risk, and scarcity of dumping land. There is an urgent need to take appropriate measures to reduce food waste burden by adopting standard management practices. Currently, various kinds of approaches are investigated in waste food processing and management for societal benefits and applications. Anaerobic digestion approach has appeared as one of the most ecofriendly and promising solutions for food wastes management, energy, and nutrient production, which can contribute to world's ever-increasing energy requirements. Here, we have explored the different aspects of anaerobic biodegrading approaches for food waste, effect of environmental factors, contribution of microbial population, available computational resources for food waste management researches and bought out a sustainable solution with a simple design that could be setup in our homes, especially under the kitchen sink which is not often used effectively for other purposes. Through our design, we will be able to digest the household waste into usable forms of energy such as Bio-gas and manure through fermentation by anaerobic digestion
Food waste could be both precooked and leftover waste discharged from various sources including food processing industries, households, and hospitality sector. According to FAO, nearly 1.3 billion tonnes of food including fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, bakery, and dairy products are lost along the food supply chain . The amount of FW has been projected to increase in the next 25 years due to economic and population growth, mainly in the Asian countries. It has been reported that the annual amount of urban FW in Asian countries could rise from 278 to 416 million tonnes from 2005 to 2025. Approximately 1.4 billion hectares of fertile land (28% of the world's agricultural area) is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted. Apart from food and land resource wastage, the carbon footprint of food waste is estimated to contribute to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by accumulating approximately 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2into the atmosphere per year. Conventionally, this food waste, which is a component of municipal solid waste, is incinerated or dumped in open area which may cause severe health and environmental issues. Incineration of food waste consisting high moisture content results in the release of dioxinswhich may further lead to several environmental problems. Also, incineration reduces the economic value of the substrate as it hinders the recovery of nutrients and valuable chemical compounds from the incinerated substrate. Therefore, appropriate methods are required for the management of food waste. Anaerobic digestion can be an alluring option to strengthen world's energy security by employing food waste to generate biogas while addressing waste management and nutrient recycling.
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