Full inventory of food waste production and disposal capacity across Taiwan, China: Changhua and Chiayi County/City
Text / Upstream and Downstream reporters Duan Yaxin, Lin Peijun
If African swine fever breaks out tomorrow, food waste will immediately become a battlefield. Is every place ready? "Upstream and Downstream" contacted local environmental protection bureaus and departments to obtain first-hand information. This article takes stock of Changhua and Chiayi County; for other counties and cities, please read the special series)
(Background note: The following food waste recycling figures are official statistics, but many food waste pig farmers say that the official statistics on food waste are not precise, because food waste has long existed in the recycling process with a situation of "reporting more while actually collecting less." Private operators drive small trucks with food waste bins on them and collect food waste everywhere in this way, mostly from households, snack shops and night markets, and these may not necessarily be included in the statistics. Readers are asked to take this into account.)
Changhua County: About 119 tons of food waste circulate daily; cooked food waste was all used for pig farming in the past
The Changhua County Environmental Protection Bureau stated that currently household food waste recycling is about 16.6 tons per day, and commercial and industrial food waste is between 16.6 and 33.3 tons. If the amount of food waste not collected by cleaning teams and circulating outside is added, it is about 119 tons per day.
At present, raw food waste collected by cleaning teams is treated by composting. Section Chief Ye of the Environmental Engineering Section of the Environmental Protection Bureau stated, "Compared with composting cooked food waste, composting raw food waste is less likely to provoke protests." Therefore, since last year Changhua County has fully and strictly implemented the separation of raw and cooked food waste. Raw food waste is mainly handled by the public composting site in Tianwei, which can process about 300 tons per day. It has already reported to the central government to expand the composting site's capacity and has begun land application and other procedures, with the goal of expanding to 600 tons of composting capacity. Cooked food waste is handed over to pig farmers for feeding pigs.
If food waste feeding to pigs is banned, short-term waste will first go to incinerators, while the long term will move toward composting and biomass energy centers
If food waste feeding to pigs is banned, what will Changhua County do in response? Section Chief Ye stated that reduction steps such as crushing and draining water will definitely be done first. In the short term, before facilities are in place, the waste will first go to incinerators. In the medium term, it will be treated by composting. In the long term, it will align with the central government's overall planning, and food waste disposal should be carried out through biomass energy centers. However, biomass energy requires time in terms of cost, land construction, equipment and so on. "This is the goal we want to achieve over the long term."
As for the processing capacity of Changhua County's incinerators, Ye stated that after deducting the "general waste" and "commercial and industrial waste" that must be handled, there is still a surplus of 60 tons for incinerating other things.
Cherishing blessings is the source of food waste treatment; Changhua City requires strict separation of raw and cooked food waste
Ruan Shunning, director of the Changhua County Environmental Protection Bureau, stated that "cherishing blessings" is the source of food waste treatment and also the most solvable link. Section Chief Ye also stated that whether it is composting, incineration or biomass energy, these are of course all methods to "dispose of" food waste, but if food waste is not reduced, all the later "methods" of disposal are only treating the symptoms. To truly address the root cause, it still must start with the public, restaurants, and every person who eats.
The local cleaning team in Changhua City also has something to say. Zeng Youxin, captain of the Changhua City cleaning team, stated that when recycling food waste, Changhua City separates food waste into raw food waste and cooked food waste for recycling. "Because the subsequent treatment is different, we collect them as two categories from the start." At present, of the food waste recycled daily in Changhua City, raw food waste is about 6 tons and cooked food waste is about 5 tons. After fermentation treatment, raw food waste is used for composting, while cooked food waste is given to pig farmers to feed pigs.
Zeng Youxin stated that the collection of food waste is something local cleaning teams everywhere are doing. As for the subsequent treatment of food waste, such as composting, because conditions differ from place to place, composting requires land, machinery and equipment, and manpower to handle, so not every place or county/city can necessarily do this part.
Changhua City began promoting food waste recycling in March of the 107th year of the Republic of China, requiring the public and catering operators to properly separate raw and cooked food waste when dumping food waste, so that cleaning teams can conveniently carry out subsequent treatment. If it is found during recycling that the waste has not been properly separated, they will require on-site separation, or after returning to separate it, wait for the cleaning team to come again the next day to collect it. But will the requirement to "send it back" cause backlash? Zeng Youxin stated that sometimes there are indeed complaints, but most people, after communication, can understand and implement it.
Chiayi County: Food waste is the responsibility of the Environmental Protection Bureau for collection and transport, and pig farms take over digestion
According to statistics from the Chiayi County Environmental Protection Bureau, Chiayi County produces a total of 30 tons of raw and cooked food waste every day, including food waste from general waste and commercial and industrial waste. In the past, it almost all relied on pig farms within the jurisdiction and in surrounding counties and cities to take over and digest it. Assistant Huang of the Environmental Facilities Management Section of the Chiayi County Environmental Protection Bureau explained that household food waste is collected along streets by garbage trucks, and the food waste removal fee for snack shops and restaurants is collected together with the water bill. "Operators have already paid us to collect and transport it, so they will not trade privately, and the Environmental Protection Bureau can more accurately grasp the amount of food waste." As for institutions that generate commercial and industrial food waste, they must commission outside treatment on their own.
In terms of food waste recycling practices, schools and institutions in the past mostly handled it by tendering their own removal operators. At present, the Chiayi County Environmental Protection Bureau has begun providing food waste recycling services for schools and institutions. Junior high schools, elementary schools and kindergartens that need food waste collection and transport can ask the Environmental Protection Bureau for help.
Chiayi City did not separate collected cooked food waste in the past, making composting difficult; in the short term it can only use incineration first
In addition, Technician Wang of the Chiayi City Environmental Protection Bureau, who is in charge of commercial and industrial waste, also pointed out that commercial and industrial food waste is about more than 100 tons per month (including raw and cooked food waste). In the past, surrounding pig farms bid to take it over. At present, neighboring Yunlin County has completely banned food waste feeding to pigs, so the Environmental Protection Bureau will guide operators to match with pig farms in Tainan, Pingtung and Chiayi County that have obtained the "reuse review," to help dispose of commercial and industrial food waste within the jurisdiction, or require operators to pay to commission qualified clearance operators to handle it.
Chen Yiru, section chief of the Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Poultry Section of the Chiayi City Government, pointed out that Chiayi City has a total of seven food waste pig farms raising 560 pigs, but in the past none had passed the "reuse review." Although five are currently applying for the "reuse review," one of the remaining farms cannot apply because its land conditions do not meet the requirements, and another raises only two pigs and has no intention of transforming. However, she frankly stated that the food waste pig farms in Chiayi City are all small in scale, and investing further in equipment to use food waste is not economically viable, so in the future they may still switch to feed feeding or exit pig farming.
Regarding the three channels for food waste disposal planned by the central government: composting, landfill and incineration, the Chiayi City Environmental Protection Bureau stated that the public in Chiayi City does not specially separate raw and cooked food waste, and all of it is recycled mixed together. When used for composting, cooked food waste contains many impurities, is salty and oily, and has an unpleasant odor, so the production and operating costs are high. In the past, generally no operators were willing to invest. The only private composting site within the jurisdiction mainly makes organic fertilizer, and the raw materials it accepts are distiller's grains; it does not collect food waste.
In addition, Chiayi City also does not have suitable landfill sites, because most land is urban land, and repurposing land would also require changing land use regulations, so it is not a short-term food waste disposal method. Therefore, the facility currently best able to digest food waste is a garbage incinerator in the West District of Chiayi City, which is expected to handle 200 tons of garbage per day.
As for planning a long-term food waste disposal plan, the Chiayi City Environmental Protection Bureau stated that it has applied to the central government for subsidies and hopes to establish its own fermentation treatment plant, for example to develop food waste power generation or produce organic fertilizer, in order to replace incineration treatment.