| Summary: | Food waste from grocery stores - An analysis of municipal management inSweden and a detailed study of the situation in Umeå municipality The objective of this thesis was to analyze the municipal management of food waste fromgrocery stores in Sweden in general and in Umeå municipality in particular. Furthermore theobjective was to account for the different waste treatment methods that can be used and toevaluate them from an environmental perspective. In order to analyze the municipalmanagement a survey was sent to all of the municipalities/municipal waste companies inSweden. A general comparison of treatment methods was carried out on the basis of ascientific review and a system analysis was performed in order to compare three differenttreatment alternatives for the food waste generated in grocery stores in Umeå. The surveyshowed that the legal definition of food waste from grocery stores is unclear and variesbetween municipalities. However, a majority of the municipalities that offer any kind ofsource separation include grocery stores in the offer. The packaged food waste is oftenincinerated even if source separation is available due to the difficulties with removingpackaging materials. Concerning treatment methods, the results show that composting is theenvironmentally least advantageous method for large-scale treatment of food waste.Incineration and anaerobic digestion are about equal in their environmental impact, but thelatter was found to be favorable in principle based on the fact that it, in theory, generates bothnutrient recycling and energy recovery. For the food waste generated in grocery stores inUmeå municipality, incineration at the Dåva power and heating plant was found to be thepreferable method rather than anaerobic digestion in Skellefteå and composting in Luleå.
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