Abstract:
Food-waste and food loss is a consumable food that is not used, and it occurs in both
developed and developing nations like Ethiopia. The goal of this study was to make an
assessment on the total generation of food waste from hotels in Bahir Dar and its
environmental impacts and to suggest the best management option based on air
emissions, acidification and eutrophication. The food waste management options
evaluated were aerobic composting, and anaerobic digestion (AD). The
environmental impact categories considered were global warming potential (GWP),
acidification potential (AP) and eutrophication potential (EP). However, the study
was limited to only assessment based on previous study and the sample taken from
selected hotels in Bahir Dar. In this study the air emissions that contribute to GWP,
AP, and EP were converted to an equivalent amount of CO2, SO2 and PO4,
respectively. The study was based on a 68 kg of food waste as a functional unit for a
case study found from the selected hotel. From an environmental perspective, i.e., the
gaseous emission results indicated that anaerobic digestion would be the best option
for food waste management, followed by composting. It were used to analyze the
impact of food waste to the environment based on the two management options, which
is Environmental Impact assessment versus life-cycle assessment . For GWP 17 kg of
CO2-eq was released to the environment by the aerobic composting; however for
anaerobic digestion scenario CO2 emission is dramatically decreased by 815.64 kg of
CO2-eq, because the methane produced offsets the emission of CO2 by burning coal.
For acidification and eutrophication scenarios anaerobic digestion (AD) has a lower
emission to the environment with 0.00616 kg of SO2-eq and 0.0004017 Kg of PO4-eq.
In addition, transportation also has an impact on the aerobic composting case with
emission of 436.012 kg of CO2-eq to the environment. Finally, the researcher
characterized the component and physical parameters of food wastes generated from
Bahir Dar city hotels and recommends for future study to determine the total cost
analysis and energy analysis for anaerobic digestion process for biogas production.
Furthermore, the study also recommends it be done in other areas of developing
countries.