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South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

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Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#51
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in China it was common to site toilets over pig stys. Some loop closing isn't a very good idea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet

Gross. Much of the 'compost' you receive at big-box stores is treated human waste: https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/frequent-questions-about-bioso... Not much goes to waste in the USA on an industrial scale.

Gross? Most vegetation sits in shit all day. Shit has been and still is central to the human diet.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#52
post #14

>The bag charges also meet 60% of the cost of running the scheme Recycling metals is substantially profitable, because scrap metal is actually worth something. Making new metal from old metal requires far less energy than making new metals from raw ore, even factoring in the costs of transportation and processing. Does collecting and composting food waste actually result in a net reduction of our use of finite resour…

One can extract the energy in food?

I mean, that's exactly how kcal count is measured - a portion of food is burnt and the energy released is then measured.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#53

That's awesome! Food waste seems so very easily preventable. Take what you want, but eat what you take. Composting what's left over is an awesome idea.

Food waste is a bigger issue than people putting too much on their plates. One of the highest sources of food waste is in the "manufacturing"/distribution phases -- malformed, misshapen, and otherwise "unsalable" produce is either left unpicked in the fields or rejected by groceries. More waste comes from rejections due to food safety regulations, overproduction, logistical errors resulting in spoilage, and the simple fact of groceries needing to display full bins/shelves of food at all times, even for low-volume products which they can never hope to sell in time.

It's like when individuals are made to feel bad over taking a five minute shower instead of a three minute shower, while Nestle is extracting millions of gallons of water without paying a cent for it. Individuals should absolutely do everything they can to reduce their own food waste, and composting is better than nothing, but as a global society we should really be focusing our efforts on the largest sources of waste first.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#54
post #50

My neighbors probably hate me but I compost all my food in the backyard. Last year was the first year we did it overwinter when the compost isn't even active and it also was the first year we didn't have mice in the house.

I know you're probably joking, but for the sake of anybody reading this who may be consider composting: A healthy compost doesn't smell bad (I honestly kind of like the smell) and doesn't smell strongly either, so neighbors won't mind or even know it's there. I compost in my small patio; there's table and chairs just a couple feet from the composter and it hasn't been a problem.

Good compost does not smell but does attract (in NA) the likes of racoons and black bears and some people vocally don't like that.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#55
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can extract the energy in food?

I mean, that's exactly how kcal count is measured - a portion of food is burnt and the energy released is then measured.

You can't measure nutritional values like that. Not everything that can be burned is available to the human metabolism. Cellulose being one obvious example.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#57

Norway: 50% of food, 77% of energy in waste, and 97% of toxic waste is recycled. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&... We are also rebuilding some of our plants to sort waste with machine learning. The initial tests are really promising. Several of them are already sorting out most plastic using spectrometer-sensors, so we don’t need to do it manually. In combination with the machine learnin…

Once upon a time I came across AMP Robotics[0], a company that also uses ML and robotics for sorting waste. Pretty nifty project, in case you're curious. You can see the robots in action on their website[1]

__________

0. https://www.amprobotics.com/

1. https://www.amprobotics.com/amp-cortex

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#58
post #4
post #2

> There’s a limit to how much food waste fertilizer can actually be used once upon a time we fed food waste to animals to "recycle" the caloric content. Think table scraps(but not meat) going to pigs or chickens. Would be interesting if we close the loop on this household content Edit: Added note that I meant "vegan" scraps.

I believe in China it was common to site toilets over pig stys. Some loop closing isn't a very good idea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet

About 20 years ago I stayed for two weeks on a rural rice farm in Goa.

The toilets fed directly into the pig sty. Very directly down a short chute add though a hole. An eager pig snout poked through the hole could make contact. Never before nor never again have I been so startled.

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#59
post #8

"per capita food waste in Europe and North America is 95kg to 105kg a year" That's a massive amount, and that is just waste in the household, not waste in the farm or factory. I can understand some wastage of salad and berries etc, but they're all lighter stuff. How can the average westerner waste 2kg food a week???

This probably includes all stages of the food value chain. A good chunk will be at the farmer but in general their scale is big enough that they can redirect to animal feed. Or a it could be at the grocer who bought too much carrots and they are starting to wilt. But at this stage things are mixed up too much so more likely to be redirected for compost. Or it could be at the restaurant which gives you a big plate of food but you are full and don't take the rest home.

http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

Re: South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste

#60
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's exactly how kcal count is measured - a portion of food is burnt and the energy released is then measured.

You can't measure nutritional values like that. Not everything that can be burned is available to the human metabolism. Cellulose being one obvious example.

Isn't that how all food is measured though?
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