Valorization of fruit wastes for circular bioeconomy: Current advances, challenges, and opportunities

The demands for fruits and processed products have significantly increased following the surging human population growth and rising health awareness. However, an enormous amount of fruit waste is generated during their production life-cycle due to the inedible portion and perishable nature, which become a considerable burden to the environment. Embracing the concept of circular economy, these fruit wastes represent sustainable and renewable resources and can be integrated into biorefinery platforms for valorization into a wide range of high-value products. To fully realize the potential of fruit waste in circular bioeconomy and provide insights on future commercial-scale applications, this review presented the recycling and utilization of fruit wastes in various applications, particularly focusing on pollutant bioremediation, renewable energy and biofuel production, biosynthesis of bioactive compounds and low-cost microbial growth media. Furthermore, the challenges of efficient valorization of fruit wastes were discussed and future prospects were proposed.

Automated summary

The demand for fruits and processed products has increased due to population growth and health awareness. However, fruit waste generated during production poses a significant burden on the environment. By embracing the concept of circular economy, fruit waste can be transformed into sustainable and renewable resources for various applications such as pollutant bioremediation, renewable energy and biofuel production, bioactive compound synthesis, and low-cost microbial growth media. This review discusses the recycling and utilization of fruit waste and highlights the challenges and future prospects.