Wasted food can be affordably turned into a clean substitute for fossil fuels.
Wasted food can be affordably turned into a clean substitute for fossil fuels.
New technology developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo engineers natural fermentation to produce a biodegradable chemical that can be refined as a source of energy.
“People like me, environmental biotechnologists, look at food waste as a tremendous resource,” said Hyung-Sool Lee, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Waterloo. “With the right technologies, we can extract numerous useful chemicals and fuel from it.”
Wasted food in North America adds up to about 400 kilograms per person per year, with the worldwide economic loss estimated at $1.3 trillion every year. Most of that discarded food goes into landfills.
Read more at the University of Waterloo
