Food Waste Treatment Options at the University of Cincinnati: Life Cycle Assessment and Economic Evaluation
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: The goal of this study was to evaluate the potential environmental impacts from air emissions of alternative food waste management options for UC campus dining halls and to recommend the best management option based on air emissions and economic cost.The alternative food waste management options evaluated were landfilling, aerobic composting, and anaerobic digestion (AD).The environmental impact categories considered were global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP) and eutrophication potential (EP).In this study the air emissions that contribute to GWP, AP, and EP were converted to an equivalent amount of CO 2 , SO 2 and PO 4 , respectively.From an environmental perspective, i.e., the gaseous emission results indicated that anaerobic digestion would be the best option for food waste management, followed by composting and then landfilling.The emission from anaerobic digestion over one semester's food waste was -37,203 kg CO 2 -eq, 3.72 kg-SO 2 -eq and 0.34 kg-PO 4 -eq.From the economic analysis, UC is currently paying significantly more for composting ($0.281/kg-food waste) than for landfilling ($0.104/kg-food waste).If a compost or anaerobic digestion facility were built onsite, the true cost over a 20 year life cycle period was estimated to be $0.048/kgfoodwaste for onsite composting and $0.107/kg-food waste for onsite anaerobic digestion.The payback period for the compost facility and anaerobic digestion facilities were predicted to be 102 months (8.5 years) and 78 months (6.5 years), respectively.IV
Author: Chao Zhu
Institution: University of Cincinnati
Language: English
Subfield: Waste Management and Disposal
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2784640320