Sustainable Optimization Analysis of Food Waste Management： A Case Study in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Zih-Shian Liao, 廖子賢
• Other Authors: 闕蓓德
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ctzem5

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 環境工程學研究所 === 106 === Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has estimated that about 30% of the food produced for human was lost or wasted along the food supply chain. Food waste is increasingly acknowledged as an urgent issue globally with not only a social cost but also negative consequences on the environment and natural resources. Therefore, comprehensive analysis of food waste managements is expected to make a significant contribution to achieve sustainable development goals. The characteristics of food waste along the food supply chain varies tremendously from place to place, taking the differences into account for the decision making of food waste managements is rather necessary. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an applied approach for evaluating environment impacts over the whole life cycle of a product, process, and activities. LCA is widely used as an assessing method in supporting systems for quantifying the environmental impacts for waste managements. The waste hierarchy h prioritize waste management measures by their environmental preferences and has recently been applied to the management of food waste. Up till now, studies for food waste management has been focusing on assessing the disposal or recovery methods of the food waste produced in the consumption stage, regardless of the prevention methods, reusing methods, and the food waste produced in other stages in food supply chain. Also, there was limited knowledge on the evaluation of food waste management strategies including both economic and environmental aspects. This study aimed at establishing two linear programing models for the optimization of food waste management. By considering both environmental and economic indicators, the approach developed in this study identified the optimal combination of food waste management options in order to maximize the environmental benefits along the food supply chain in Taiwan within certain budget. LCA results showed that the hotspots for environmental impacts of food supply chains in Taiwan was production stage for grain, meat, fruits and vegetable, and process stage for milk. On the other hand, the optimization result showed that, among all options, donation storage and handling and centralized composting were the least favorable food waste management measures in Taiwan, which indicated that these two options would be excluded at the planning stage of the food waste management in the case study area. With more comprehensive consideration of the life cycle of each type of food waste, and also more localized life cycle inventory data, a more authentic LCA approach was established along with the optimization modeling established to identify the optimal combination of each treatment quantity, thereby creating a more effective decision support tool in food waste management. This study seeks to enhance the authenticity and reliably of existing food waste management analysis by improving the data inventory of LCA, the omitted impacts from upstream stages of food wastes and also the optimization modeling into actual amount treatment quantity, which can further be utilized by stakeholders to be more initiative faced with multiple management options.