Resource Recovery from Food Waste Through Conversion to Value-Added Products

Eco-friendly management and utilization of high organic compound laden abundant wastes like food and agricultural wastes has become a necessity in everyday life. The present goal of sustainability is to not only prevent leftovers from being dumped in landfills but to make ways to turn food waste (FW) into products with additional value that could solve issues in other areas. The highly organic and nutrient-rich composition of FW paves its path to be utilized in numerous biotransformation processes facilitating resource recovery. High-temperature aerobic composting to produce fertilizers, feed animals, produce biogas by fermentation, and make other renewable energy sources like hydrogen, biodiesel, ethanol, etc. are some of the standard methods to use FW. However, advanced research also shows several other ways to exploit food waste. Microbial polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) produced from different FW can be used as precursors of bioplastic. Bioactive compounds extracted from food waste residues have high nutraceutical values. Reducing the production of FW must be our first priority, but proper utilization of the generated FW has the potential to solve many problems. Thus, it would be quite apt to say that food waste is no more waste but an opportunity to pay off a bit of the huge debt we owe to Mother Earth. This chapter presents an overall discussion on the available options of conversion of FW into valuable products with analysis of the current state-of-the-art pros and cons and recommendations for enhancement.