Sustainable Waste Disposal in Industrial Kitchens
The increasing pressure on the earth’s natural resources means that we must rethink our ways of producing and consuming. There is a need for sustainable and circular solutions, where each biological building block is used as many times as possible.
In large scale industrial kitchens, waste handling is an inherent part of daily operations. Leftover peels from e.g. carrots, fish bones or drained coffee grounds is normally quite impractical to deposit easily and sustainably in large-scale kitchens.
A complete sustainable waste solution
Therefore, the Danish company Biotrans has developed a complete solution to industrial kitchens for disposing organic waste properly and sustainably. The solution consists of an in-house waste shredder called BioMaster, that breaks down food waste and transports it to a bio tank either underground or outside the kitchen. The bio tank will automatically be emptied by Biotrans’ partners when it’s full. The tank is also equipped with an active carbon filter which assures that no foul smells escape the tanks.
The food waste is converted into biogas at a biogas facility through a process that is eight times more CO2-friendly compared to a typical coal-fired combined heat and power plant. Thus, food waste from an industrial kitchen is directly recycled. Leftover from the gasification process is turned into fertilizer.
The Biotrans solution has already processed 36.000 tons of food waste and saved 35% CO2 compared to conventional disposal of waste
Furthermore, the food waste from Biotrans’ does not undergo the energy consuming preliminary treatment prior to the gasification process. This is possible due to the purity of the waste, which is completely free of plastic and metals food waste is thus transported directly to the biogas facility from the industrial kitchens and into the core which reduces energy consumption even further.
Easy handling spares employees
Besides being sustainable, the solution is also easy to use. Handling the big amounts of waste is often a heavy workload that strains the backs and shoulders of kitchen staff. With the BioMaster in-house solution, food waste can be disposed with no need for filling large waste bags. Simply scraping a dish off or emptying a waste bucket directly into the shredder will suffice, as the bio tanks can contain enormous amounts of waste compared to normal waste bins.
Sustainable for both environment and staff
The Biotrans solution has already processed 36.000 tons of food waste and saved 35% CO2 compared to conventional disposal of waste. And those are just the results of the environmental aspects of the solution. The expenses from weekly handling of waste bins are cut due to the volume of the bio tank – it only has to be emptied every 4 to 6 weeks. Injuries for handling heavy waste bags are also reduced, easing the workload of kitchen staff. In summary: BioMaster is both an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable solution for handling food waste.
