International Journal of Waste Resources

Abstrait

Food Waste and its Impact on the City of Malaga

Alanbari MH, Santiago Ruiz Laiseca

Introduction: Food waste is a particular problem in developed countries where the most significant costs can be seen in the environmental burden and in the resources needed to produce food that will eventually be discarded.

The General objective is to establish the most significant socioeconomic and environmental impacts generated by the production of food waste in Málaga carrying out a theoretical study using the method of documentary review on the management of MSW (Urban Solid Waste) and food waste generated in the city of Málaga and describing a statistical analysis of the results.

Results: In the year 2015, the 249.838 Tn collected from waste represent an increase of 1.76% with respect to the previous year. The production in the collection was 22.9 million euros, compared to the 22.3 million euros allocated during 2014, which shows the economic impact generated. As for the percentage of waste treated from 2012 onwards, a gradual increase is observed, reaching 68% and decreasing the percentage of waste discharged to 22%. In 2015, 16.654 Tn were treated for compost in the city of Malaga, although they are figures that do not reflect the reduction of food waste, they guide us on how these are reused in the desire to take advantage of their energy value.

Conclusions: In recent years, the production of urban waste has increased in the city of Malaga, food waste represents a source of undesirable odours for society, constitutes a focus of attraction of insects, rodents or indigents and their accumulation gives rise to an unhealthy outbreak. Reducing food waste is the most promising avenue to reduce the ozone footprint caused by food waste.