Microbialtronic - Tackling Food Waste

        Food waste is a pressing issue globally. Annually, one-third of the world’s food supply is never consumed, and domestically, up to 40% of the crops grown in America is being thrown away due to consumption patterns. Consumers overbuy, throw away food prematurely due to confusing food labels, or do not finish the meal. During the holiday seasons, 30% of the grocery stores are being thrown away. At the same time, about 18 million households in America do not have enough food, while the amount that is being thrown away globally can feed 3 billion people. My proposal aims to tackle this issue of food waste from 2 approaches – repurposing the food waste while educating the public about waste reduction.

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Repurposing food waste

        No matter how much each individual reduces waste, there are bound to be food scraps leftover from meals, such as bones and inedible parts of meat or vegetables. These food wastes are organic matter than are currently being dumped into landfills and are broken down underground, without excess to oxygen. This lack of oxygen means that the chemical process will produce methane gas, which is 23 times better in trapping heat as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Hence, not only is the organic matter wasted by being dumped into landfills, they are also harming the environment. The solution to this is Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs), in which bacteria of the Schewanella species grow on the anode in a layer of biofilm. This species of bacteria is capable of consuming organic material from organic waste, and using that to produce carbon dioxide and electrons. The electrons will then flow through the circuit of the cell to the cathode, generating electricity. At the cathode, the electrons will react with oxygen to form harmless water. This way, the organic matter from food waste, or any organic waste in general, can be repurposed to generate electricity instead of methane gas!

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Raising public awareness

        To me, I think that finding the technology to repurpose waste is second to educating the public about waste reduction – if everyone still generates however much waste he/she would like, there is no point developing technology to repurpose the waste because it is only going in a vicious cycle. Instead, technology such as MFCs should be targeting at removing residual waste after waste reduction. In order to educate the public, I propose to use the electricity generated to set up a 3D animation space in public spaces. By stepping into the space, people will be educated on the statistics of food waste and ways that they can do to help as an individual, while being introduced to the possibility of repurposing residual waste to achieve zero waste production. This 3D animation space can be set up using 2 high-resolution video projectors, and allows viewers to be immersed in the projection, creating a more long lasting impact in the viewers than ordinary videos. 

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REFERENCES

“Food Waste: The Facts.” World Food Day USA. United Nations Environment Programme, n.d. Web. 1 May. 2016. 

“Fuel Cells that Uses Bacteria to Generate Electricity.” Science News. Science Daily. 7 Jan. 2008. Web. 2 May. 2016. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080103101137.htm

TEDx Talks. “A Recipe for Cutting Food Waste | Peter Lehner | TEDx Manhattan.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube. 4 Mar. 2013. Web. 2 May. 2016. 

“Working Together: Bacteria Join Forces to Produce Electricity.” Biodesign. The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University. 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 1 May. 2016. 

“2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics.” World Hunger. World Hunger Education Service, 25 Nov. 2015. Web. 1 May. 2016.