Greenbox - A Novel Community-Based Food Waste-to- Energy Collection System

摘要

The US generates more than 34 million tons of food waste each year and over 97% of it is disposed of at US landfills. This paper describes the development of a novel food waste collection kiosk called 'Greenbox' that will collect and store food waste from households and restaurants with incentives for user participation to spur food waste to energy production in the local community. Major barriers to food waste to energy production in the US are related to the high cost of food waste collection coupled with low landfill costs. Greenbox will overcome these obstacles by consolidating food waste for delivery to local large energy firms while providing incentives to users in the form of rewards. Greenbox will offer a low cost collection option to divert food waste from landfills, reduce greenhouse gases from decomposition, and aid in generating cleaner energy.