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Waste Management in the Food Processing Industry
Author(s) -
Soderquist Michael R.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq1972.00472425000100010019x
Subject(s) - scrap , reuse , waste management , food processing , environmental science , business , food waste , food industry , production (economics) , waste treatment , engineering , mechanical engineering , chemistry , food science , economics , macroeconomics , political science , law
Public awareness of the current environmental crisis has prompted the food processing industry to initiate action on several fronts. This activity has been aimed at reducing the impact of waste products on the environment. Although the quantities of food processing wastes generated annually are massive, and production takes place mainly during the summer months when assimilative capacities of receiving waters are minimal, significant progress in the areas of waste reduction, wastewater recycling, by‐product development, and waste treatment has been made. Examples of such successful efforts include production of animal feed from vegetable wastes, development of fish hatchery rations from seafood scrap, design of a less wasteful potato peeling method, development of cheese whey concentration techniques, culturing of single‐cell protein on solid wastes, treatment of maraschino cherry brine for reuse, and others. Further advances will be made by the food processing industry in the 1970's through the utilization of the unified systems approach, which considers individual operations, from harvest through waste disposal, as integrated sub‐units of the total process. Through the utilization of this concept, maximum benefit can be derived from given inputs of time and effort, yielding a complete system which has been optimized to produce a practicable minimum of waste materials.