1/ Definition
Kitchen waste is any kind of rubbish produced during commercial kitchen activities – such as preparing food, cleaning plates and equipment. Food waste is the main type of kitchen waste, but other products and materials also make up such waste, including packaging, equipment, and more. Kitchen wastes are a big contributor to a lot of current world problems.
2/ Categorizing
Some of the most common kitchen waste types and examples include:
Leftover food: food left over from meals ( from professional kitchens, families, ... ). Unsold food from local markets or other retail outlets such as produce food
Solid rubbish: Jars & containers, dish racks, spice racks, shelf baskets.
Prepared, perfectly edible food that has not been eaten
Trimmings like food scraps from food preparation in restaurants, cafeterias, or homes; and by-products of food and beverage processing
3/ Status Quo (how are people dealing with kitchen waste?)
a. What people are doing
People are not aware of the problem => Wasting colossal amounts of food
Sellers ( supermarkets, markets, restaurants, ... ) mostly throw away leftovers and don't care about the potential harm that it might bring ( prioritizing their own benefits ).
Consumers such as home cooks, professional chefs, ... throw food wastefully and don't realize the harms that it brings.
b. How it's contributing to current world problems
Global food waste has an enormous environmental impact. Food waste is a huge source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and wasted natural resources, and therefore – reducing food waste could largely help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, establish food security, and encourage healthy food systems.
Global food waste also contributes to global resource depletion. Lost and wasted food occupies almost 30% of the global agricultural land area, which contributes to the spread of monocultures, the destruction of natural biotopes, and the loss of biodiversity. It also affects underprivileged people in poor societies that don't have a lot of access to basic needs ( in this context, food, water, ... ), and animal habitats.
1/ Environmental Pollution
Environmental Pollution is the contamination of the physical and biological components of the earth/atmosphere system to such an extent that normal environmental processes are adversely affected. They're also the addition of unwanted chemicals that cause a change in the environment. One of the causes of pollution is garbage overload or lack of waste management.
2/ Lack of resources
Lack of resources is one of the biggest problems in the world right now, greatly affecting underprivileged populations, where these resources are somewhat considered a luxury. Wasting resources like these make the prices skyrocket by a large margin, making them even more inaccessible to poor communities, which will:
Increase the gap between social classes ( the rich vs the poor )
Heavily impact people as lack of resources contributes to hunger, lack of clean water, ...
3/ Health problems
Wasting resources contributes to a lot of health problems all around the world. People can develop diseases such as asthma, birth defects, cancer, cardiovascular disease, childhood cancer, COPD, infectious diseases, low birth weight, preterm delivery, ...
Utilizing organic kitchen waste for gardening
Utilizing kitchen waste including but not limited to fruit peels, vegetable roots, eggshells, etc for the use of composting would largely reduce the amount of waste from households. It would also help eco-friendly businesses save the time and cost of chemically produced compost to richen the dirt. (insert pic)
Repurpose, reduce, reuse, and recycle kitchen waste
a. Reduce the use of single-use plastic products including but not limited to straws or cups. Instead, eco-friendly products are highly recommended for everyone. Paper straws and even glass straws are good examples of products that are good for the environment. They will limit the amount of waste in landfills, and it's much more sustainable and long-term.
b. Repurpose batteries into a box, which will prevent these harmful chemicals to spread into our food and water source, which can include but are not limited to mercury, cadmium, lithium, lead, etc.
c. Recycle fruit peels and seeds with acidic characteristics by fermenting them with water and sugar to create enzymes. After straining out the solids, the liquid from the solution can be used as a cleaning solution for businesses and households. With first-hand experience from meeting restaurant and villa owners, its confirmed that the smell of this solution tops many other detergents.
d. Reuse the excess, organic leftovers from making other dishes when cooking, and use them for other dishes to lower the amounts of waste being emitted.
Used battery stored in a jar
Fruit peel enzyme jar
Eco -friendly straw made from paper
Toothpaste pills to reduce plastic containers
Compost in the process of composting
Save resources such as groceries or nylon bags to be used more effectively. As a result of that, resource prices will go down, making it very affordable and accessible to poor, lower-privileged societies, where resources like these are a luxury.
Raise awareness for society to limit food waste in general and kitchen waste specifically.
Farmers will profit both economically and morally. First of all, they will have more eco-friendly compost which is cheaper while still have productive and is even better for the environment. Secondly, their products will not be wasted and this is meaningful for them because they have put a lot of effort into the process. Last but not least, using our solutions will be more long-term because the soil and water source is much more clean, filled with valuable nutrients, and will not need to be replaced in a long amount of time.
Society's health will be much more ensured from pollution because first of all, kitchen waste is a huge factor in environmental pollution so if this problem is solved or limit the numbers, the Earth will be much cleaner. Also, the atmosphere will consist of less harmful air such as Methane or Carbon Monoxide, which is important since these are very lethal and dangerous for us.