Resource-efficient treatment of organic industrial waste: Optimization of different treatment options using reMIND

The aim of this work was to find the optimal resource-efficient treatment alternative for organic waste from the food industry. For that, four different treatment methods for thirteen feedstocks were studied: animal fodder production, incineration, biological treatment and biogas production. An optimization model was used to find which treatment alternative is the optimal from a variety of perspectives.The studied systems were evaluated from three different evaluation perspectives: economy, energy and environment. The energy evaluation included two different electricity systems: coal condensing power and wind energy.The results show that there is no single optimum feedstock treatment method taking all the perspectives studied into account. Instead, it is important to consider all different perspectives when evaluating the resource efficiency of the treatment method for a feedstock. However, both incineration and anaerobic digestion of the food waste can be considered as resource-efficient treatment options for the studied feedstocks.

Automated summary

The aim of this study was to determine the most resource-efficient treatment method for organic waste from the food industry. Four different treatment methods were studied for thirteen feedstocks, and an optimization model was used to find the optimal treatment alternative from multiple perspectives. The evaluation included three perspectives: economy, energy, and environment. The results showed that there is no single optimum treatment method, but incineration and anaerobic digestion were considered resource-efficient options.