Journal
WASTE MANAGEMENT
Volume 46, Issue -, Pages 94-102Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2015.07.013
Keywords
Residual waste; Waste composition; Biochemical methane potential; Sorting efficiency; Impurity; Waste sorting bins
Categories
Funding
- Danish Strategic Research Council [11-116775]
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Existing legislation mandates that the amount of waste being recycled should be increased. Among others, in its Resource Strategy Plan, the Danish Government decided that at least 60% of food waste generated by the service sector, including in office areas, should be source-sorted and collected separately by 2018. To assess the achievability of these targets, source-sorted food waste and residual waste from office areas was collected and weighed on a daily basis during 133 working days. Waste composition analyses were conducted every week to investigate the efficiency of the source-sorting campaign and the purity of the source-sorted food waste. The moisture content of source-sorted food waste and residual waste fractions, and potential methane production from source-sorted food waste, was also investigated. Food waste generation equated to 23 +/- 5 kg/employee/year, of which 20 +/- 5 kg/employee/year was source-sorted, with a considerably high purity of 99%. Residual waste amounted to 10 +/- 5 kg/employee/year and consisted mainly of paper (29 +/- 13%), plastic (23 +/- 9%) and missorted food waste (24 +/- 16%). The moisture content of source-sorted food waste was significantly higher (8%) than missorted food waste, and the methane potential of source-sorted food waste was 463 +/- 42 mL CH4/g VS. These results show that food waste in office areas offers promising potential for relatively easily collectable and pure source-sorted food waste, suggesting that recycling targets for food waste could be achieved with reasonable logistical ease in office areas. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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