Margit Närvä, Jarmo Alarinta and Gun Wirtanen
The purpose of this study was to investigate amount of food waste and the number of food packages used in Finnish households with university students. The aim of the paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate amount of food waste and the number of food packages used in Finnish households with university students. The aim of the paper is to answer the following research questions: How much avoidable food waste is generated in the participating various sized households? How much unavoidable food waste is generated in the participating various sized households? How many food packages are classified as deposit, municipal waste or recycled in the participating various sized households?
Design/methodology/approach
The data was collected among the students in Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. A total of results from 432 households with 890 persons are presented. The participating households weighed their unavoidable and avoidable food waste and calculated the food packages during one week. The results were analysed in Excel and the statistical significance assessed using a t-test.
Findings
The average avoidable and unavoidable food wastages were 498 g/week/person, i.e. 25.9 kg/year/person and 543 g/week/person, i.e. 28.3 kg/year/person, respectively. Single-person households generate more avoidable and unavoidable food waste as well as packages per person than other sized households. The results show that there is no correlation between the amount of avoidable food waste/person, unavoidable food waste/person or packages/person.
Originality/value
This kind of research has sparsely been reported. The food and package wastage definitions vary, and thus it is difficult to compare these results with other reported results.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of these studies was to investigate the cleaning and hygiene of plastic cheese moulds and plastic transportation crates and to assess the suitability of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of these studies was to investigate the cleaning and hygiene of plastic cheese moulds and plastic transportation crates and to assess the suitability of ultrasonication for cleaning these dairy devices on a pilot scale and to optimise these cleaning procedures.
Design/methodology/approach
The contamination load in the various process lines was monitored by use of chemical methods, i.e. EDTA titration and COD measurement for organic residues and various microbiological techniques for microbial contaminants. Ultrasonication cleaning procedures for cheese moulds were planned among parameters applicable to the process environment. The Taguchi method design of experiments was also used for the cleaning of milk transportation crates.
Findings
Ultrasonication was found to be a suitable cleaning method for both cheese moulds and transportation crates. Acceptable cleaning results were achieved using short cleaning procedures with a temperature under 60°C. Various types of cleaning agents can be used together with ultrasonication and the plastic materials in the utensils tolerated ultrasonication. The quality and the efficacy of the cleaning liquid used in the ultrasonic bath in the dairy plant were rapidly diluted due to the accumulation of organic soil. To ensure the effectiveness of cleaning, the quality of cleaning liquid should be measured frequently and threshold limits for changing the cleaning liquid should be set. The COD measurement proved to be practical for monitoring the organic load of the cleaning liquid and traditional culturing, as well as commercial culturing applications, e.g. Petrifilm™ AC and DryCult® TPC can easily be used for monitoring the level of microbial contamination.
Research limitations/implications
No major limitations, apart from the required investments, were found for applying the ultrasonication in the cleaning of dairy devices, e.g. plastic cheese moulds and plastic milk transportation crates.
Originality/value
The work is of value in highlighting the potential use for ultrasonication in improving the cleaning procedure of returnable milk transportation crates made of plastic.