The benefits of turning food waste into organic fertilizer

As the global population increase and the scale of the city expand, the discharge of food waste is always increasing. Each year, millions of food produced around the world, meanwhile millions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage. Nearly 30% of the fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, and packaged foods produced around the world gets tossed out every year. Food waste has become a huge environmental problem in each country.

Why The Food Waste Could Be Processed into Organic Fertilizer?

Fruits, vegetables, dairy products, grains, bread, coffee filters, eggshells, meats and newspaper can be composted. Food waste is unique as a compost agent, it is the main source of organic matters. Food waste includes various chemical elements, such as starch, cellulose, protein lipids and inorganic salts, and N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, K some trace elements. Food waste has a good biodegradable rate, which can reach 85%.  It has great recycling value with many characteristics, such as high organic matter, high water content and abundant nutrient elements. Food waste has a high moisture content and low physical structure, it is important to mix fresh food waste with a bulking agent that will absorb some of the excess moisture as well as add structure to the mix.

Food waste has high organic content, of which crude protein accounts for 15% to 23%, fat accounts for 17% to 24%, ash accounts for 3% to 6%, Ca accounts for 54% and NaCl accounts for 3%- 4%, etc.

Technology of Turning Food Waste into Organic Fertilizer

From the above, we learn that landfill has low resource utilization rate and pollutes the environment. Some developed countries has established complete food waste disposal system nowadays. For example,&nbsp;in Germany, food waste is mainly treated by <u>composting </u>and anaerobic method, and about 5 million tons organic fertilizer is produced from food waste every year. In British, about 20 million tons CO2 emissions is reduced by composting the food waste each year, and almost 95% cities adopt the composting method in the U.S..

Composting can bring various environmental benefits, including reduction in water pollution, and the economic benefits to farmers, gardeners, and landscapers can be substantial.