Evaluation of food waste disposal options in terms of global warming and energy recovery: Korea

Abstract

Wind energy has been explored as a viable alternative to fossil fuels in many small island developing states such as those in the Caribbean for a long time. Central to evaluating the feasibility of any wind energy project is choosing the most appropriate wind speed model. This is a function of the metric used to assess the goodness of fit of the statistical models tested. This paper compares a number of common metrics then proposes an alternative to the application-blind statistical tools commonly used. Wind speeds at two locations are considered: Crown Point, Tobago; and Piarco, Trinidad. Hourly wind speeds over a 15-year period have been analyzed for both sites. The available data is modelled using the Birnbaum-Saunders, Exponential, Gamma, Generalized Extreme Value, Generalized Pareto, Nakagami, Normal, Rayleigh and Weibull probability distributions. The distributions were compared graphically and their parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation. Goodness of fit was assessed using the normalised mean square error testing, Chi-squared testing, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, R-squared, Akaike information criteria and Bayesian information criteria tests and the distributions ranked. The distribution ranking varied widely depending on the test used highlighting the need for a more contextualized goodness of fit metric. With this in mind, the concept of application-specific information criteria (ASIC) for testing goodness of fit is introduced. This allows distributions to be ranked by secondary features which are a function of both the primary data and the application space.

Comparison and Evaluation of Large-Scale and On-Site Recycling Systems for Food Waste via Life Cycle Cost Analysis

“…The result of this study was different from those of previous studies [14,18,19], according to economic efficiency of large-scale treatment system was better than that of on-site treatment system. Therefore, this study was determined to enhance the validity of the on-site recycling system which has been currently promoted by Korean government under the slogans such as resource cycling and green growth and contribute to decision makings by local governments which intend to introduce a processing system of food wastes, due to development of new towns or deterioration.…”

“…As such, the economic efficiency analysis currently employed in Korea does not sufficiently evaluate some cost components such as environmental and social costs for large environmental infrastructure developments and it as a challenge to reach mutual agreement between project stakeholders. The environmental benefits of on-site recycling systems are expected to be large because they generate less food wastewater and greenhouse gas emissions compared to the existing large-scale treatment systems, but previous studies on the economic efficiency evaluation failed to appropriately reflect benefits due to resource circulation [18,19]. Therefore, studies that consider such benefits are required.…”

Waste Food not Eat: Food Waste Treatment or Obesity - Selection of Sustainable Strategies for Dealing with Food Waste and Obesity

“…Quantification of environmental impacts was performed for four impact categories (global warming potential, land use, water footprint and energy demand). Calculations were based on average values from numerous LCA studies performed for food waste treatment with anaerobic digestion [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] , composting [45,49,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57], incineration [38,45,47,48,50], wastewater treatment [58][59][60][61], feeding to pets [62][63][64] and other methods which represent average impact values of all other waste treatment methods. Calculated average LCA impacts were multiplied by the relevant mass flows of avoidable food waste at household level to determine the overall effect of avoidable food waste treatment with current technologies.…”

A Conceptual Framework to Analyze Food Loss and Waste within Food Supply Chains: An Operations Management Perspective

“…Many studies are from the field of environmental science, which is the largest subject in FLW research. Studies discussing the environmental impacts of FLW are mainly from two streams: the wastage of upstream production resources, such as water [49] and land [50], and waste disposal from downstream, such as greenhouse gas emissions caused by consumption waste [51][52][53][54]. Proper FLW reduction operations are considered to have high potential to reduce the environmental burden [55].…”