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Plastic contamination entering food waste management systems
Summary
Researchers characterized plastic contaminants in food waste collected from restaurants, groceries, schools, and households, finding that fragments entering composting and anaerobic digestion systems can partially degrade and re-enter the food system as microplastics through land application of the resulting biosolids — releasing a dataset and R scripts for further analysis.
Managing food waste by composting and anaerobic digestion offers potential sustainability benefits compared to the conventional practice of landfill disposal. However, these processes can be unintended sources of plastic pollution to the environment, due to the presence of plastic contaminants originating upstream in the food system. During food waste processing, plastic contaminants may partially degrade, ultimately leading to microplastic releases into the food system, by way of land application of compost and other bio-based products. Preventing and managing these releases requires a better understanding of the sources, magnitude, and nature of plastic contaminants traveling through food waste management systems. This research collected representative food waste samples from common generators, including restaurants, groceries, schools, and households, characterized the abundance, type, and characteristics of contaminants present, and interpreted results through the lens of potential technological and ecological risks. This dataset includes all raw data, measurements, analytical results, and observations related to the collected food waste samples and the contaminants contained in each. The dataset also includes the R script used to process and visualize and generate figures for the study.