One of the massive problems in the world is the wasted food wastes thrown all around us especially in

landfills or in water as remainers from industries or from restaurants or from consumers “human”.

A lot of studies from “FAO” “The food and agriculture organization” have revealed that 1.3 billion tons of
food is wasted annually. This will affect economically the world around us as 1 USD trillion dollars are
wasted annually. In The side of environmental impact of this problem, the disposal of wastes increases
the pressure in landfills which harms the environment as it increases air and water pollution as they are
thrown without carefulness.

Unfortunately, around 14% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail. There are a lot of
examples which represent the forms of food wastes including:

1- Plate wastes.
2- Expired or spoiled feed
3- Seeds and peels are the remainders of vegetables and fruits.
4- Unfinished beverages as consumed drinks that are disposed of
5- Overcooked food
6- Packaging wastes

Food wastes are transformed into variety of products from biofuels and fertilizers to packaging materials.

A research article entitled ‘physical properties of flours obtained from wasted breadcrumbs ‘refers to the
usage of these wastes in bio-products.

From an article published in the journal of association of Arab universities states that 60% of the wastes
are organic, 10% papers and 1.2 % mineral wastes. The emerging economies suffer from food production
and transportation losses. One of the reasons is the growth of the population as through 11 years 2.7 %
increase caused in population compared to 2,4 % increase in food wastes. The increase in wastes caused
also a huge problem as when it decomposes, it produces undesirable gases which helps in exceeding the
percentage of green house gases which causes global warming. As food wastes are present in every stage
from production to consumption as this problem appears due to the Inedible wastes which can’t
consume as peels, eggshells and bones.

One of the simple people who suffers from the problem of food wastes is Uncle Eid who works as a
fisherman In Alexandria. HE goes fishing everyday as it is the source of his income. He noticed that
number of fish that he gets daily reduced than before and he heard that governorate had announced
that there are lot of wastes that are thrown in water either from factories due to industry or people
throwing their wastes in water. He concluded that fish could die or decrease in number as these wastes
harm them or could kill them. This shows the environmental problem of wastes. In addition to that,
Uncle Eid is from Alex and his region includes a lot of fishermen who suffers from the same problem.
Uncle Eid has poultry which he breeds, the problem with them is that he has shortage in feed for them
which represents the wastes of plants as farmers get rid of them by burning them or throwing them in
landfills. He lives in a region which has a simple form of life as electricity in his house doesn’t work
efficiently. For this reason, our project targets Uncle Eid which is sufficient for our project to work on it to
solve this problem.

The whole region as I said where he lives suffers from this problem as Alex is a coastal region which
whole Egypt depends on its water for resources of food as fish and the freshness of water which we use
it in industries such as salt industries. We could reflect this problem in Whole EGYPT as in economy, we
would suffer from downgrade in fish resources that we depend on it which would get our economy in
problems. The spreading of wastes is a destructive view which reflects our carelessness and harms us in
the environment as burning wastes harm your family members and cause diseases for them as lung
cancer due to greenhouse gases as carbon monoxide and nitrogen monoxide which harm us and the
whole world. Wastes could cause the shortage in food as due to running out of food as we couldn’t make
use of these wastes in industries for example to benefit from them in a process of recycling food. The
view of the sea itself if it was polluted could cause harms in tourism which we could reflect also on
economy. The wastes also from food could cause problems in the production cycle basically in Egypt as
we use fossil fuels to operate our machines which harms us badly as it produces emissions which has a
bad impact on our health.

Our project came up with a lot of solutions for these problems including it is important to
replace fossil fuels with alternative renewable sources of energy such as agricultural
and food waste.

Although syngas can be used like a conventional natural gas, which is a methane-
based fossil fuel, it is different from it because of its higher composition of carbon
monoxide and hydrogen.

These gases can be further converted into bio- based gases such as methanol and
ammonia.

Benefits of Less Food Waste

 Cost savings on labor through more efficient handling, preparation, and storage of
food that will be used.

 Cost savings when purchasing only as much food as needed and avoiding additional
costs of disposal.

 Reduced methane emissions from landfills and a lower carbon footprint.

 Community benefits by providing donated, untouched, and safe food that would
otherwise be thrown out.

What are the benefits of food waste

We touched on this above, but recycling food waste instead of sending it to landfill is much
cheaper. This is because waste management companies can offer preferential collection rates for
recycling, as these are not regulated in the same way as traditional waste is. It is also in the waste
management company’s interest to recycle food waste. As environmentally friendly practices
become the norm, having your food waste sent to landfill could be detrimental to your brand. It
is estimated that 50% of consumers have avoided a product based on a company’s responsible
reputation.

From these advantages of the Idea of recycling food wastes, we came up with our project as we
used these wastes to generate biogas and methane gas by using fuel cells using these wastes as
they are clean and will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide gas. We used fermentation as we
extracted biogas from food wastes. We used anaerobic digester as Micro-organisms break down
these wastes, producing biogas and we added waster to fasten this process and carbohydrate
wastes are our efficient and faster in implementing this process. There are some emissions which
we could make use of it through getting CO2 and feeding algae which is the main source of fish
feed. We could generate electricity too and make bio-product plastic as we use methane in this
industry. Also, food wastes could be processed and turned into nutrients for feeding poultry and
we could apply the same method on fish too so, we targeted two of the main sources of food. We
could use activated carbon in manufacturing filters and organic wastes as fertilizers which costs
us less instead of getting artificial fertilizers.

Finally, we could solve the problem of Uncle Eid through providing wastes as a feed for his
poultry and we reduced the effect of wastes by collecting them instead of throwing them which
gave his region a clean place and we could benefit from them as a feed for fish so, we preserve
the life and the production cycle of fish. WE could also benefit from these wastes as a source of
electricity as we helped to rise the standard of life for Uncle Eid and all his region people.
Through Biogas extraction, we could benefit from it through get a cleaner source of fuel for
operating cars of Uncle Eid’s region people. We hope also to have the technology and resources
too to generate renewable resources of energy to thrive the life of Uncle Eid and hid people.