Food Waste Management and Sustainability 2nd Edition
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 12 February 2027 | Viewed by 1394
Editor
Interests: green chemistry; food waste; waste valorisation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The problem of food waste has become an ever-increasing topic of interest over the past decade. With a growing global population now reaching over 8 billion, the demand for food has also continued to rise. Unfortunately, as food production increases, so does the volume of waste and byproducts from the supply chain. With current practices, such as dumping in landfills, open air burning, and leaving food to rot, contributing significantly towards GHG and air pollution issues, there is an increasing pressure to deal with byproducts from the agriculture and food manufacturing sector more sustainably.
This has notably become incorporated in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as Target 12.3 (Reduce the amount of food waste per capita by half by 2030). There are a number of important developments that reduction in avoidable food waste and valorization of unavoidable food waste can contribute towards. These include (but are not limited to) increased availability of nutritious food, an increased economic agricultural sector and the production of bio-based fuels, materials and chemicals without competing with arable land.
The scope of this Special Issue will therefore seek to bring together articles highlighting advances in methods for reducing avoidable food waste and valorizing unavoidable wastes with a focus on the contributions these practices make towards sustainable development. We encourage submissions that demonstrate how waste streams can be transformed into valuable resources. For example, extracting essential oils and pectin from citrus peel creates natural flavor sources and fat/sugar alternatives, effectively increasing food availability. Similarly, using pectin- or cellulose-based gels derived from waste for hydroponic substrates or controlled pesticide release demonstrates how crop productivity can be enhanced through waste valorization.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Improving manufacturing efficiency;
- Advances in crop protection and productivity (specifically through the application of valorized waste products);
- Production of bio-based fuels, chemicals and materials;
- Reduction in spoilage through AI and technology;
- Systems-based approaches to establishing new manufacturing and processing hubs (focused on waste valorization technologies).
I look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Tom Dugmore
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- food waste valorisation
- bio-based economy
- agrochemicals and technologies
- UN sustainable development goals
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Related Special Issue
- Food Waste Management and Sustainability in Sustainability (11 articles)
