Utilization of Food Wastes for Urban/Peri-Urban Agriculture in Japan

GEN ISHOKA

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Utilization of Food Wastes For Urban/Peri-Urban Agriculture In Japan

Gen ISHOKA

ABSTRACT Large amount of municipal/industrial wastes is discharged in Japan and critical state of final disposal site emerged. Japanese government shifted the policy to establish a "Sound Material-Cycle Society" and "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" of waste is requested. Under such circumstances, reuse and recycle of food waste is requested in agriculture. Utilization of fertilizers and feeds made of food waste and utilization of the effluent of methane fermentation of food waste can contribute, but there are many constraints to hamper recycle especially for the garbage from household. Keywords: municipal waste, garbage, compost, feed, effluent, methane fermentation

INTRODUCTION Japanese society and government used to give highest priority to advancing its economic development. This policy enhanced mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal. As a result, amount of discharged waste increased year by year and waste disposal site said to be full in several years. This situation led Japanese government shift their policy to turn Japanese society more environmentally sound, and "Fundamental Law for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society" was enacted in 2000. Several laws concerning recycling, such as "Food Waste Recycling Law," were enacted and enforced subsequently. Then started "3Rs" policy, "3Rs" means "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", in order to create a sustainable society: one that has balance between the environment and the economy. Under such circumstances, reuse and recycle of food waste is requested in agriculture, as most of the food waste is agricultural origin. Generation of food waste is more in urban area than rural area. Thus urban/peri-urban agriculture should contribute more in reuse and recycle of food waste.

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STATE OF DISCHARGE OF SOLID WASTES AND RECYCLING OF FOOD WASTE IN JAPAN State of discharge of municipal/industrial solid waste Solid wastes are classified into two categories in Japan: municipal and industrial. The disposal of municipal wastes is the responsibility of the municipalities. The disposal of industrial wastes is the responsibility of the entities that generate the wastes. In FY 2003, the amount of discharged municipal solid waste was 51.61 million tons in total and 1.106 kg/capita per day. These figures have not changed much in 15 years (Fig.1). Household waste was 34.66 million tons (67.2%) and business waste was 16.95 million tons (32.8%).

Method for final disposal is landfill in Japan. Direct landfill is 1.86 million tons (3.6%) and landfill after reduction by intermediate treatment (e.g. incineration) is 6.59 million tons (12.8%). Amount of landfill decreased gradually from 1994-2003, largely due to decreasing volume of direct landfill (Fig. 2).

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15 million tons

direct landfill landfill after treatment

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2 4 6 8 10 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 FY Fig. 2. Amount of final disposal (municipal waste) in Japan, FY 1994 - 2003
Source: Ministry of the Environment

200 million cubic meters

remaining capacity remaining lifetime 20

150

15 10 years

100

50

5 0

2 4 6 8 10 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 FY Fig. 3. Remaining capacity and lifetime of final disposal site (municipal waste) in Japan, FY 1994 - 2003
Source: Ministry of the Environment

Remaining capacity of final disposal sites for municipal solid waste is 137.08 million cubic meters and remaining lifetime is 13.2 years. The remaining capacity decreased steadily in these several years but the remaining lifetime increased slightly (Fig.3), as the amount of landfill decreased (Fig. 2).

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Total amount of discharged industrial waste is approximately 412 million tons, this figure has not changed much in 15 years (Fig. 4). Three major sources accounted for more than 60%, i.e. electricity, gas, heat and water supply (92.25 million tons, 22.4%), agriculture (90.59 million tons, 22.0%) and construction (75.01 million tons, 18.2%). Sludge accounted for 46.3% (190.38 million tons), followed by excrement of animals (88.98 million tons, 21.6%) and debris (59.25 million tons, 14.4%). 48.9% (201 million tons) of industrial waste is recycled and 43.7% (180 million tons) undergoes reduction. Final disposal is 30 million tons (7.4%). Amount of final disposal decreased steadily in these 10 years (Fig. 4). Highest recycle ratio is scored by excrement of animal, 93.8%, and most of them turned into livestock waste compost. Remaining capacity of final disposal sites for industrial solid waste is 184.18 million cubic meters and remaining lifetime is 6.1 years. The remaining capacity decreased steadily in these several years but the remaining lifetime increased slightly (Fig.5), as the amount of landfill decreased (Fig. 4).

500 million tons 400 300 200 100 0

total volume final disposal

'90 2 '92 4 '94 6 '96 8 '98 10 '00 12 '02 14 FY Fig. 4. Amount of industrial waste in Japan, FY 1990 - 2003
Source: Ministry of the Environment

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200 million cubic meters

remaining capacity remaining lifetime 20

150

15 10 years

100

50

5 0

2 4 6 8 10 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 FY Fig. 5. Remaining capacity and lifetime of final disposal site (industrial waste) in Japan, FY 1995 - 2003
Source: Ministry of the Environment

State of food waste recycle Other than commonly used livestock waste compost, waste that can be applied to agriculture is food waste. It includes garbage of household and waste from food related business, i.e. food manufacturing, food distribution, food sales and restaurant/catering. Only the waste from food manufacturing is categorized into industrial waste, others are categorized into municipal wastes. Discharge from food related business is 11.358 million tons in FY 2004 and the amount recycled is 5.793 million tons. Total amount have not changed much since 2000, but the recycling rate gradually increased and it exceeded 50% in FY 2004 (Fig. 6).

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15 million tons

total volume recycled volume

10

2 4 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 FY Fig. 6. Amount of food waste in Japan, FY 2000 - 2004
Source: The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Table 1 shows amount of food waste and recycling type of each food related business. Food manufacturing is most in amount and highest in recycling rate. As business scale turns smaller, recycling rate decreases.
Table 1. State of Food Waste Recycling total volume recycled volume type of recycle (%) fertilizer feed 46 28 30 22 39 35 38 36 20 33
methane fat/fat others fermentation product

(million tons) (million tons) (%) manufacturing wholesales retail restaurant/catering total 4.898 0.751 2.604 3.194 11.358 3.80 0.40 0.82 0.77 5.79 78 53 32 25 51

0 0 0 1 0

3 1 7 6 4

16 33 27 51 24

One important constituent of food waste not listed in Table 1 is garbage from household. Estimated volume of the garbage is about 10 million tons in FY 2003. The amount is gradually decreasing, but still it is as much as total discharge from food related business (Fig. 7). More important is the recycling rate. In FY 2002, only 1.8% of garbage from household said to be recycled, contrary to the food waste of business origin in municipal waste, 24%.

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40 million tons / %

total volume from household estimated percentage of garbage estimated volume of garbage

30

20

10

2 4 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 FY Fig. 7. Amount of waste and garbage from household in Japan, FY 1999 - 2003
Source: Ministry of the Environment

UTILIZATION OF RECYCLED FOOD WASTE IN JAPAN Among the types of recycle listed in Table 1, fertilizer, feed and effluent of methane fermentation can be utilized for agriculture. Over all, separation of the materials not suitable for farmland application, such as plastics and pull-tabs, is the largest problem, especially for the wastes from household and restaurant/catering. Separation machine is installed in some facilities, but separation at the source, for example kitchen and table, is necessary. It requires consciousness from all of us. Another problem is offensive odor and pathogen, which compels immediate treatment. Variation in volume and constituent also restricts utilization. As it is difficult to control these issues on waste from household, recycle and reuse is limited. Fertilizers Wide variety of garbage processing machine is sold in Japan. For household use, which handles 1 to 3 kg at one time, price is above $300 and many municipalities set subvention for purchasing. For business use, capacity varies from 10kg to more than 500kg and so is the price, usually more than $10000. Type of treatment is dehydration and or fermentation. Fig. 8 shows crude fat content of processed garbage from school-provided lunch in Mie Prefecture. Even the treatment type is

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fermentation, a lot of crude fat remains, meaning these garbage processing machine cannot complete fermentation. Application of immature compost may cause severe damage to plant growth. It is not advisable to use this kind of treated garbage directly to agriculture.

% fermentation dehydration

15

10

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Fig. 8. Amount of crude fat in processed garbage

Source: Mie Prefecture Science and Technology Promotion Center

One solution for this issue is nitrogen addition. Tokyo University of Agriculture operates garbage dehydration and pelletization facility which can add urea into the pellet (Goto I. 2005). Additional nitrogen from urea avoid nitrogen deficiency in soil (Fig. 9). It is not only nitrogen deficiency that causes damage, but even after 5 years of application (N-P2O5-K2O = 4-1-1, 1t/10a), no damage has observed. Salt content is 0.8-2.1% and it is not harmful as far as using outside of greenhouse. The facility produces 70kg of fertilizer from 500kg of garbage from restaurant in the university, schools and supermarket nearby. Their plan was utilization in the farmland of the district, about 140 ha, but could not be achieved. What hampers utilization is the impression that it is made of "garbage", despite it is rather "clean" biologically as it becomes about 90C during the dehydration process. Collaboration work with some comprehensive farmer to prove harmless is necessary.

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Another solution is secondary treatment to complete fermentation. There are several compost plants for garbage or dehydrated garbage. Some of the compost plants for livestock waste accept garbage. Garbage contains high amount of fat, protein and starch. These constituents are easily decomposed by microorganisms and the decomposition process requires oxygen. This means regular mixing and aeration is necessary and it takes longer period to complete fermentation. Even after complete fermentation, the impression of "garbage originated" and worries about salinity hampers utilization. Some of the franchise chains of restaurant, convenience store resolve this issue by promising to purchase agricultural products using the compost from the franchise chain. Feeds It is necessary to take extreme care on sanitary and quality when one turns food waste into feed of livestock. Waste from food manufacturing industries, such as crumbs of bread, residues of alcoholic fermentation and juice, is easier to control quality, quantity and purity, therefore they are widely used. Waste from the other type of food related business is also possible to turn into feed if separation of trash is achieved. In City of Sapporo, Hokkaido, garbage from food manufacturing factory, supermarket, hotel, school, hospital and restaurant is collected by a public corporation and a company processes and sells as a material of mixed feed. Garbage from household is not included.

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In City of Nagaoka, Niigata, NPO conducts recycle of garbage from school-provided lunch to livestock production in the district. The system is highly dependent on participants, i.e. kitchen staffs of school and livestock farmers, and volunteers who transport garbage from school to farmer. Kitchen staffs are responsible for separation and farmers are responsible for manufacturing feed by fermentation. An important point at the separation is feed for bovine cannot contain meat and fish. There are several progressive examples like this, but the number is still limited due to the difficulties on controlling quality, quantity and purity. Feed made of garbage is high in fat. It makes fat in pork softer and degrades quality. Farmers have to recognize the quality of the feed and control it by mixing with the other kind of feed. For about purity, relationship between waste producer and consumer affects. Successful case tend to have producer and consumer known each other. In such case, producers try their best to meet consumer's demand. Methane fermentation Methane fermentation, which produces methane from livestock waste or garbage by anaerobic digestion, produces effluent as by-product. In many cases, the effluent is treated as sewage. This means separation of solids, denitrification or dilution to meet water quality standard is operated with extra cost. The effluent contains 0.2-0.5% nitrogen, 0.2-0.4% potassium and 0.1-0.2% phosphate. Although it is dilute, still agricultural use is possible. The main constraint for agricultural use is that the effluent is liquid. This means some method for transport is necessary. Solid material content is usually less than 10% but it is difficult to transport with ditch or pipe. In order to apply 10kg of nitrogen in 10a, the amount of the effluent with 0.2% nitrogen is 5 tons. Only with the vehicle with huge tank can manage. Another constraint is offensive odor. Although it smells far better than slurry or rotten garbage, it is not acceptable to spread large amount of the effluent onto the top of soil, especially in the urban area. It can be avoided with injection into soil or immediate covering with soil, which requires special apparatus. One good utilization method is spreading into paddy with water. Dilution of the effluent reduces offensive odor.

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In Japan, interest in organic agricultural products grows more and more these days. Farmers can apply livestock waste compost as basal dressing, there was no good organic fertilizer for top dressing. The effluent of methane fermentation would be useful. It is difficult to meet the criteria of Japanese Agricultural Standard for Organic Agricultural Product, but it is suitable to meet the demand for "Specially Grown Agricultural products", which requires reduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by 50%. Methane fermentation is operated at 35C or 55C. Temperature is lower than composting or dehydrating and pathogen may not die out. Carbonate and alkali said to eliminate E.coli form dairy cattle manure (Diez-Gonzalez et.al. 2000), precise condition to eliminate is not confirmed. The effluent of methane fermentation is usually pH 7.5-8.0 and contains high amount of carbonate (100-200mM). More study on this topic is needed. Methane fermentation plant of large scale costs several million dollars to build and several hundred thousand dollars to operate. But it does not cost much to keep the minimum requirement, anaerobic condition. In Ogawa town, Saitama, NPO made small scale facility of strong plastic sheet and compressed panel, which costs about $14000 (Fig. 10). Garbage is collected from household in exchange of local currency. The effluent is applied to paddy and vegetables, which can be purchased with the local currency.

Fig. 10. Methane fermentation plant of NPO Foodo, Ogawa Town

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REFERENCES Diez-Gonzalez F., Jarvis G.N., Adamovich D.A., Russell J.B. 2000. Use of carbonate and alkali to eliminate Escherichia coli from dairy cattle manure. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 34 (7): 1275-1279 Development of high quality composting system using garbage treated materials. 2005. Report for Research project for utilizing advanced technologies in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. (in Japanese) Goto I. The trial of community-based garbage recycling in Setagaya-ku Tokyo. 2005. SOIL MICROORGANISMS 59 (2): 111-115 (in Japanese) State of Discharge and Treatment of Industrial Waste in FY 2003. 2005. Ministry of the Environment, JAPAN State of Discharge and Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste in FY 2003. 2005. Ministry of the Environment, JAPAN State of Recycling of Cyclical Food Resources. 2005. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, JAPAN

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