Keywords
Biowastes · Valorization · Fuels · Chemicals · Food · Circular economy ·
Environment · Sustainable development
5.1
Introduction
According to United Nations report, the global population will continue to rise in a
steady state phase; it will reach 8.5 billion in 10 years from now and will be 9.7
billion in 30 years from now and around 80% of the mentioned population will live
in cities (Wilson et al. 2016). As the population increases the demand for food, fuels,
chemicals will increase simultaneously with consequent utilization of natural
resource also increases tremendously. Besides these, the dependence of global
population for their primary source of energy has not reduced significantly. The
current balance of fossil fuels such as coal (3,789,934 ktoe), Natural Gas
(3,106,799 ktoe), Nuclear (687,481 ktoe), and oil (4,449,499 ktoe) indicate its finite
quantity and if the current rate of utilization continues, the remaining years for
complete depletion of fossil fuels are 53 years for oil, 54 years for natural gas, and
110 years for coal (Ritchie and Roser 2020). The consumption rate far exceeds the
production of fossil fuels. The transportation sector continued to be the highest
consumer of total energy produced during 2017 (IEA 2019). This unprecedented
utilization of fossil fuels has emitted more CO 2 adding to the global climate change
(IEA 2019).
Besides these negative effects on the environment, the burgeoning population
levels lead to generation of enormous quantity of wastes to the environment. Wastes
are defined as unwanted and unsuitable materials or by-products. Depending on
degradation nature, wastes can be classified into biodegradable and
non-biodegradable. The most common and abundant waste of all, is Municipal
Soil Waste (MSW). Worldwide, the total MSW generation for the year 2018 was
2.01 billion metric tonnes (Kaza et al. 2018). The USA was among the highest in
terms of generation (267.8 million tonnes) followed by Europe (249 million tonnes)
which was followed by China (215 million tonnes) during the year 2017 (Bhatia
et al. 2018). It is predicted that by 2050, 3.40 billion metric tonnes of MSW alone
would be generated (Kaza et al. 2018). Accumulation of waste seems to be on
increasing trend, for instance, the most notorious plastic waste generation was over
8 million tonnes in the year 2017 and unfortunately most of them were dumped into
sea (Xu et al. 2019). The most common methods of treatment of wastes are land fill,
open dumping, and incineration with very less amount goes for recycling. Such
management practices add more greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the environment, for
example, 3% Methane was emitted by open dumping, land fill, and direct incineration of MSW in the year 2017 (Wilson et al. 2016).
Therefore, the world is confronted on one side with the explosion of population,
the other side with increased waste generation due to increased consumption of fuels,
chemical, food, and feed. Thus, the developed and developing countries think of
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M. I. Kumar et al.
Biowastes · Valorization · Fuels · Chemicals · Food · Circular economy ·
Environment · Sustainable development
5.1
Introduction
According to United Nations report, the global population will continue to rise in a
steady state phase; it will reach 8.5 billion in 10 years from now and will be 9.7
billion in 30 years from now and around 80% of the mentioned population will live
in cities (Wilson et al. 2016). As the population increases the demand for food, fuels,
chemicals will increase simultaneously with consequent utilization of natural
resource also increases tremendously. Besides these, the dependence of global
population for their primary source of energy has not reduced significantly. The
current balance of fossil fuels such as coal (3,789,934 ktoe), Natural Gas
(3,106,799 ktoe), Nuclear (687,481 ktoe), and oil (4,449,499 ktoe) indicate its finite
quantity and if the current rate of utilization continues, the remaining years for
complete depletion of fossil fuels are 53 years for oil, 54 years for natural gas, and
110 years for coal (Ritchie and Roser 2020). The consumption rate far exceeds the
production of fossil fuels. The transportation sector continued to be the highest
consumer of total energy produced during 2017 (IEA 2019). This unprecedented
utilization of fossil fuels has emitted more CO 2 adding to the global climate change
(IEA 2019).
Besides these negative effects on the environment, the burgeoning population
levels lead to generation of enormous quantity of wastes to the environment. Wastes
are defined as unwanted and unsuitable materials or by-products. Depending on
degradation nature, wastes can be classified into biodegradable and
non-biodegradable. The most common and abundant waste of all, is Municipal
Soil Waste (MSW). Worldwide, the total MSW generation for the year 2018 was
2.01 billion metric tonnes (Kaza et al. 2018). The USA was among the highest in
terms of generation (267.8 million tonnes) followed by Europe (249 million tonnes)
which was followed by China (215 million tonnes) during the year 2017 (Bhatia
et al. 2018). It is predicted that by 2050, 3.40 billion metric tonnes of MSW alone
would be generated (Kaza et al. 2018). Accumulation of waste seems to be on
increasing trend, for instance, the most notorious plastic waste generation was over
8 million tonnes in the year 2017 and unfortunately most of them were dumped into
sea (Xu et al. 2019). The most common methods of treatment of wastes are land fill,
open dumping, and incineration with very less amount goes for recycling. Such
management practices add more greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the environment, for
example, 3% Methane was emitted by open dumping, land fill, and direct incineration of MSW in the year 2017 (Wilson et al. 2016).
Therefore, the world is confronted on one side with the explosion of population,
the other side with increased waste generation due to increased consumption of fuels,
chemical, food, and feed. Thus, the developed and developing countries think of
86
M. I. Kumar et al.