With the rapid development of the catering industry, mountains of food waste have followed. If food waste is not disposed of in a timely manner, it will not only put great pressure on the environment, but also allow harmful substances to flow into the ecosystem. In this paper, the technology, equipment and industry status of kitchen waste treatment are interpreted.
Kitchen Waste Industry Development Status
As kitchen garbage is the majority of household garbage, and there is a rising trend. Food waste has a very serious impact on the environment. China is in the initial stage of garbage treatment, in the case of incomplete treatment facilities, how to deal with such a huge kitchen waste, to the development of the city has brought a problem.
The restaurant waste industry is very important in China, in large part because it is closely related to gutter oil and other livelihood issues. Since 2010, every document on restaurant waste has been issued directly by The General Office of the State Council. According to statistics, more than 90 percent of the 118 kitchen processing projects carried out in China have received financial support from the National Development and Reform Commission. Visible industry development prospect is considerable.
Before interpreting the processing technology, equipment, and industry status of kitchen waste, we should first understand kitchen waste.
Kitchen garbage is the household garbage formed in the process of people’s life. It is easily perishable and deteriorates. It gives off odor and spreads bacteria and viruses.
Kitchen waste mainly consists of a mixture of rice and flour food residues, vegetables, animal and vegetable oils, meat bones, waste tableware, plastics, paper towels, and other substances. In terms of chemical composition, it contains starch, cellulose, protein, lipids, and inorganic salts.
The main characteristics are rich in organic matter, high water content, perishable, its character and smell will have a bad impact on environmental health, and easy to grow pathogenic microorganisms, antitoxins and other harmful substances.
Domestic and foreign mainstream kitchen waste treatment technology
The basic idea of garbage disposal is to reduce, recycle and do no harm. After years of development, there are several mainstream kitchen waste treatment technologies at home and abroad: crushing direct discharge, small kitchen waste processor, high temperature aerobic composting, anaerobic fermentation and biological transformation technology.
Kitchen Waste Disposal Equipment
Current kitchen waste disposal equipment can be broadly divided into two types: One is the kitchen waste treatment equipment with relatively small specifications, mainly refers to some machines or machinery specially used to deal with kitchen waste. This type of kitchen waste treatment equipment is relatively small in terms of specifications and processing progress.
The other is large and relatively professional kitchen waste treatment equipment, which mainly refers to some assembly line operation mode that can handle large quantities of waste. This type of kitchen waste treatment equipment is similar to assembly-line production in industrial production in mode, paying more attention to the efficiency and speed of work.
1. Small kitchen waste treatment equipment
Treatment principle: Mainly rely on some additional biological fermentation materials for waste decomposition.
The device developed by TOGO that can turn food waste such as banana peels, fish innards, and coffee grounds into fertilizer has become very popular after entering the market. TOGO has launched a kitchen waste processor that uses hot air to dry and compress organic waste, reducing its volume to 1/7 of its original size. Big eat hutch garbage processing equipment in the area, the design specifications are relatively large, the big eat hutch garbage disposal work relies mainly on some pipeline mode of production, through a series of procedures to implement the garbage disposal work, and in the process to extract the useful resources, as the production and utilization of raw materials in other industries.
At present, all the devices in the household kitchen waste treatment equipment are sealed inside the outer container to prevent the gas generated during the fermentation process from flowing into the room and contaminating the indoor air.
2. Mid-range capacity kitchen waste treatment equipment
3. Large kitchen waste treatment equipment
Using physical principles, through electrification and mechanical principles to carry out garbage crushing, in this process, due to a large amount of food waste processing, so will also be applied to the related biological decomposition technology for processing. The large-scale kitchen waste processing production line adopts microcomputer integrated control technology in operation, including dehydration, biological fermentation, oil-water separation, bio gas treatment, and other major steps.
For example, large state-owned enterprises and listed companies in Guangdong province use kitchen waste processors:
The all-in-one kitchen garbage processing machine adopts physical grinding method to grind kitchen garbage into particle residue, whose particle size is less than 6mm. The oil and water separator can separate the waste oil from the food and beverage waste to achieve separate collection, measurement and recycling. During operation, the oily diving is first poured on the filter net of the operating table, and the appropriate amount of water is sprayed to wash the oil in the diving thoroughly: the oily waste-water flows into the oil-water separator for oil-water separation.
The last solid residue and waste oil can be recycled through aerobic composting, anaerobic fermentation, black water snake feeding, bio-diesel production and other ways to achieve the reuse of kitchen waste.
Urban kitchen waste harmless treatment and resource utilization project model
City of eat hutch waste resource utilization at home and abroad is the new requirement of environmental protection is put forward under the new situation, the model from eating hutch waste source to finally get the whole process of resource products to adopt standardized management model, in accordance with the food, feed hygiene standards for double pattern immobilized material collection process, before the reduction treatment, oil-water separation of slag processing high factors.
The application of this technique is different from traditional eat hutch garbage handling but uses a variety of symbiotic means to change material properties, organic waste to high nutrient feed, bio-diesel, and gutter renewable fuel oil, for organic waste treatment to reduce costs, increase efficiency, does not increase the burden of the government and enterprises, at the same time provides a large number of labor force employment opportunities for the society, It has greater social benefits.
Three barriers to the development of the kitchen waste disposal industry
The reasonable disposal of kitchen waste is closely related to residents’ life, belongs to public utilities, and is also the basis of urban economic and social development. Therefore, the kitchen waste disposal industry provides a public good, which has both economic and social effects. There are three main barriers to the restaurant waste treatment industry: government relationship, financial strength, and technology.
Government relations. Restaurant garbage disposal is a public utility, and the local government takes the lead in project bidding and is responsible for supervising the construction and operation of the project. Therefore, the relationship with the government will have a great impact on the probability of winning the bid.
Financial strength. There are generally two construction modes of kitchen waste treatment projects: BOT and EPC. At present, the country’s vigorous promotion of the PPP model undoubtedly brings new hope for the establishment of a sustainable development model of the kitchen waste treatment industry. In the implementation of the PPP project, participating enterprises can consider the establishment of a consortium to complement each other to solve capital or technical problems; To make good use of a variety of financing methods, reasonable allocation of project risks.
There are four main processing routes of kitchen waste treatment: feed production, aerobic composting, anaerobic fermentation, and bio-diesel production. Among them, aerobic composting is the most widely used technology at present and is expected to be the mainstream technology of kitchen waste treatment in the future.