Go Zero-Zero Waste Management in Food Sector

One of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals is “sustainable production and consumption” that includes all related stakeholders including raw material supply system, manufacturing, distribution, service and disposal. Sustainable food products will provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health, welfare, and environment over their entire life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to final disposition. The food industry is a powerhouse for the global economy. In order to succeed in the sustainability applications for the food sector, it is of great importance to bring standardization on the main pillars of sustainability, especially on environment with globally accepted standards on integrated resource and chemical management together with waste and emission prevention. UN associated offices and related stakeholders in food industry has combined economic growth with respect to planetary boundaries. Reconciling World development with Earth sustainability can be explored with Sustainable Development Goals so that global economic development can be achieved within human health and ecological health.

Manufacturing processes in food sector lead to generation of various types of wastes, secondary products, by-products that has to be utilized in an integrated way. Regarding the content of the project, one of the main focus points is external reusability and recyclability applications for by-products. This will be provided through industrial symbiosis guide covering all the details of external management of production waste in upgraded applications of environmental management applications with a special emphasize on cleaner production. Environmental problems generated in a local area can easily scale up to a regional problem, which brings the need for collaboration on a wider, regional basis. As food production is one of the largest manufacturing sector in Turkey, food industry has an important role on national economy and increasing its export potential steadily. Within this frame, food producers from different countries need to collaborate to sustain their international market. Moreover, they need to sustain their product quality and production quality in terms of supply chain management. Considering the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement, countries have already agreed on reduction of carbon emissions. However, the dependence of the global food system on fossil fuels contributes to GHG emissions and may increase input costs to the extent that they become unaffordable. Project partners will contribute as multidisciplinary team of researchers with their established knowledge in their field. The nested structure of this project will contribute to the growing body of research in integrated waste management opportunities. For this concern, in order to develop a bridge with the aforementioned issues and successful application of zero waste management in food sector in the partner countries; a pollution prevention ladder stage based approach is planned to be used in the training contents. The pollution prevention ladder gives an overview of several environment oriented activities pursued in business. The scope of the project will cover external and internal reuse-recycle-repair-rethink-reduce options for integrated waste management system with the main target of efficient zero waste application.

This project has 9 partners from 6 countries. Applicant organisation is İstanbul Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanisation. Governorship of İstanbul (TR), Boğaziçi University(TR), ENAİP LOMBARDİA(IT), MANRA(ES), Media Creativa(ES), Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies(LVA), Exponential Training & Assessment Limited(UK), Kaunas Food Industry and Trade Training Centre(LT) are project partners.
This partnership will create following outputs:
IO1: Comprehensive Framework on Waste Management Applications in Europe and A Comparative Report (on Current Legislation)
IO2: Waste Management Skills Defined in Food Sector and the Training Curriculum (EQF4);
IO3: Training Content For Waste Management in Food Sector; 
IO4: Enriched Educational Materials and E-learning Platform; 
IO5: Industrial Symbiosis Guide
IO6: White Paper: Recommendation Paper on Waste Management in Food Sector
In terms of project management, we will have Quality Management Plan(including assessment tools and risk management plan) and Dissemination Plan. We will realize 1 LTT short-term staff training as well as 5 TPMs. Moreover, 6 MEs will be held to disseminate project results.