Environmental impacts of different waste to food approaches

All waste treatment options have environmental impacts. As waste to food is one of the many possible ways to valorise (or treat) food waste, environmental impacts of different waste to food processes need to be compared alongside other waste treatment methods. In addition, the environmental impact of the prevention of waste needs to also be compared to waste to food impacts. This chapter introduces the method of life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of various production and treatment options. We highlight multiple methods to conduct environmental impact assessment, including a bottom up LCA, or a hybrid IO-LCA approach. We cover the drawbacks and limits of these different LCA methods. We highlight best practice waste to food environmental assessment case studies, including the REFRESH FORKLIFT toolkit. We intend for this chapter to be a broad introduction to these topics, empowering a decision maker or researcher to understand the processes, and limits of waste to food environmental impact assessments