We have seen how meat processing can be pollutive to the environment. Similarly, before hitting the stores and our dinner plates, most agricultural products undergo some form of processing in the processing plants. While these processes have been getting more efficient and faster to ensure that the products hit the shelves are of high quality. Unfortunately, during these processes, there is a significant amount of waste produced, especially involving fruits and vegetables (Babbar and Oberoi, 2014). These are generally in the form of seeds, stones, pulps and peels of the agricultural products. These by-products can be so significant that the mass may outweigh that of the valuable product obtained after processing, especially for tropical crops (Miljkovic and Bignami, 2002).
While these waste products might seem harmless, they are much more behind when we begin digging deeper. These residual wastes are often disposed into regular trash or just left to rot, leading to land pollution. This is because there has yet to be a widespread introduction of proper infrastructure to handle such a huge quantity of waste (Sharma, Oberoi and Dhillon, 2016). Commercial and proper disposal would also add on to the cost for the producers while disposing such bioactive waste directly to landfill would cause serious forms of environmental pollution (Babbar and Oberoi, 2014).
This is due to the waste containing a high biochemical oxygen demand as well as high levels of solid suspensions (Sharma, Oberoi and Dhillon, 2016). Furthermore, wastes from fruits and vegetable processing consist of biomass that has an acidic pH (Riggle, 1989). Apart from consisting of organic wastes, the waste also contains cleansing and blanching agents, salts as well as pesticide and fertiliser residues that are washed from the agricultural inputs (Sharma, Oberoi and Dhillon, 2016). Washing of such chemicals by rainfall would result in them entering local water streams as part of runoff and adding to the pollution from the farms discussed previously. Moreover, mishandling of solid waste and effluents from the processing of agricultural products, such as onions or preparation of ready-to-eat meals, can lead to air and odour pollution as gaseous chemicals to which people might be sensitive to can be released into the locality of the factories (ibid.).
Now that we are more aware of how food processing plants can add to environmental pollution, let’s try to make more informed decisions when it comes to choosing what we put on our plates by tracing the foodprints of our further ‘behind’. Well, after our food is processed, there do need to be packaged and stored before they can hit our shelves and then our plates, so is there any pollution during these stages? Find out more in our next post!
Trailing off,
Jade and Ridzuan
References
Babbar, N. and Oberoi, H.S. (2014). Enzymes in value-addition of agricultural and agro-industrial residues. Enzymes in value-addition of waste, p.29. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Naceur_MHAMDI/publication/296324019_Different_enzymes_and_their_production/links/56dec58208aeb8b66f95fa30.pdf#page=39 [Accessed 10 Sep. 2020].
Miljkovic, D. and Bignami, G., Science & Technology International. (2002). Nutraceuticals and methods of obtaining nutraceuticals from tropical crops. U.S. Patent Application 10/067,569.
Riggle, D. (1989). Revival time for composting food industry wastes. BioCycle (USA). [online] Available at: https://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=US8926951 [Accessed 10 Sep. 2020].
Sharma, R., Oberoi, H.S. and Dhillon, G.S. (2016). Fruit and Vegetable Processing Waste. Agro-Industrial Wastes as Feedstock for Enzyme Production, [online] pp.23–59. Available at: https://www-sciencedirect-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/science/article/pii/B9780128023921000022 [Accessed 10 Sep. 2020].
