An Investigation on Food Waste Recovery: A Preliminary Step of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) Development

Solid waste is generally disposed as landfills due to the simplest and cheapest disposal procedures, as compared to incineration and composting. High amount of organic material, particularly food waste (approximately 45%) can be found in the solid waste in this country. Being the most practical solution, landfilling however does not seem to be the most rational approach considering its byproducts, i.e. methane gas and fluidic leachate which could cause high contamination to the air and water. Lately, researchers have placed emphasis in food waste as its high organic content has a great potential of being turned into ethanol or a source of biofuel. Bioethanol is one of the most promising alternative energy sources to diminish the dependence on fossil fuel. It could be produced by the fermentation of sugar-rich crops and food wastes. This paper investigates the use of an electrostatic separator to segregate the food waste and non-food waste from the waste mixtures. Electrostatic separator is capable of separating particles based on the conductivities of the constituent components. It is widely used to sort out particles with high conductivities from those with relatively low conductivities, e.g. to recover conductors from non-conducting mixtures, serving as an environmentally friendly way for recycling without negative impact to the surrounding. In this study, influences of various volumetric ratios of non-food waste, i.e. plastic and glass, on recovery process of food waste would be studied. The findings contribute to reduction of landfill size with rare existence of organic matters in landfills. In addition to the environmental protection, the proposed food waste recovery process would enable the Waste-to-Energy (WtE) development and economical growth from biogas and potential biomass energy generation.