👉 Whenever I work with waste management practitioners I always highlight the necessity to collect food waste separately from other wastes.
Why? 🥑🧴🥔🍾🥖🍶👕👞 🤢 Once food waste is mixed with other materials, it is unsuitable for agricultural purposes 🌱
📉 Soils around the world are becoming depleted at a frightening rate.
♻️ Organic material needs to be returned to the soil to protect future harvests.
Some technology providers will say they can recover “fertiliser” or similar from mixed waste🪄 – please don’t believe the hype.
⁉️ Why is this such a serious issue?
Contaminants can be:
⚫ Physical – plastics, metal, glass and stones – these can cause injury to workers and prevent roots taking hold in the ground.
🔴 Chemical – pesticides, persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals – these can do long-term harm to the soil, anything grown in it, and to freshwater sources and the people who rely on them.
🔵 Biological – bacterial and fungal pathogens, weed seeds, plant propagules and toxins – these can kill your crops, introduce invasive species, and be harmful to human health.
❌ You don’t want any of this on your farmland or in your food chain ❌
The International Solid Waste Association has published a practitioner’s guide, helping you:
✅ Improve profitability
✅ Improve product quality
✅ Protect your equipment
✅ Prevent harm to the environment and human health.