Exploring a zero food waste system for sustainable residential buildings in urban areas

This study explores the environmentally innovative and low-impact technology, a zero food waste system (ZFWS) that utilizes food waste and converts it into composts or biofuels and curtails carbon emissions. The ZFWS not just achieves food waste reductions but recycles food waste into fertilizer. Based on a fermentation-extinction technique using bio wood chips, the ZFWS was employed in a field experiment of the system installed in a large-scale apartment complex, and the performance of the system was examined. The on-site ZFWS consisted of three primary parts: 1) a food waste slot into which food waste was injected; 2) a fermentation-extinction reactor where food waste was mixed with bio wood chips made up of complex enzyme and aseptic wood chips; and 3) deodorization equipment in which an ultraviolet and ozone photolysis method was employed. The field experiment showed that food waste injected into the ZFWS was reduced by 94%. Overall microbial activity of the food waste in the fermentation-extinction reactor was measured using adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), and the degradation rate of organic compounds, referred to as volatile solids, increased with ATP concentration. The by-products generated from ZFWS comply with the national standard for organic fertilizer.