Fecha de publicación: 01/01/2024 Fuente: Agri-Waste and Microbes for Production of Sustainable Nanomaterials Abstract
Food waste is a major issue in the global agrifood supply chain. Food demand is anticipated to increase globally by 60–110% from 2005 to 2050 due to diet shifts and population growth. However, 30–40% of the food produced is lost or wasted. Food waste adversely impacts the environment, economy, and society. Hunger and food waste affect society. Food waste reduction benefits food producers/manufacturers, supply chain partners, retailers, and households by increasing revenue and lowering waste-disposal costs. Moreover, the United Nations has set a goal of halving food loss and waste by 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals; objective 12.3). In order to achieve this, it is crucial that we increase the use of innovative and sustainable management strategies to prevent as well as reduce waste. Considering this, circular bioeconomy (CBE) models in the agri-food system are able to minimize the amount of food loss or waste generated in the agrifood supply chain by utilizing them as a new resource. To accomplish this, waste management should follow the waste hierarchy, which involves the following steps: prevention, minimization, reuse, valorization, recovery, and elimination. Reducing food waste has economic and environmental benefits, such as decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources. Further, several different methods like thermochemical, biochemical conversion, and so on have been put forward for recycling waste from the agrifood processing industries into value-added materials. Altogether, this chapter provides an overview of agrifood waste management with treatment strategies together with innovations in agrifood supply systems and challenges and solutions related to valorizing agrifood wastes/by-products.