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{{Short description|Material discarded as a byproduct of agriculture}}{{other uses|Agricultural wastes (disambiguation)}}Agricultural waste are plant residues from agriculture. These waste streams originate from arable land and horticulture. Agricultural waste are all parts of crops that are not used for human or animal food. Crop residues consist mainly of stems, branchs (in pruning), and leaves.JOURNAL, Mohite, Jagtap, Avhad, More, September 2022, Recycling of major agriculture crop residues and its application in polymer industry: A Review in the context of waste to energy nexus, Energy Nexus, 7, 100134, 10.1016/j.nexus.2022.100134, 251708592, free, It is estimated that, on average, 80% of the plant of such crops consists of agricultural waste.WEB, FAQ,weblink 28 November 2022, PaperWise, The four most commonly grown agricultural crops worldwide are sugarcane, maize, cereals and rice.BOOK, 2021, Statistical Yearbook World Food and Agriculture, 10.4060/CB4477EN, 978-92-5-134332-6, 240163091,weblink 28 November 2022, The total weight of all these crops is more than 16,500 billion kilograms per year.WEB, FAQ,weblink 2 November 2022, PaperWise, Since 80% of this consists of agricultural waste, many tens of thousands of billions of kilograms of agricultural waste remain worldwide.WEB, PaperWise – wise with waste,weblink 10 November 2022, Some 700 million tonnes of agricultural waste is produced annually by the EU.JOURNAL, Sustainability in Food Supply Chain and Food Industry, Sustainability, August 2017, 9, 8, 1492, 10.3390/su9081492, free, Fritsch, Caroline, Staebler, Andreas, Happel, Anton, Cubero Márquez, Miguel Angel, Aguiló-Aguayo, Ingrid, Abadias, Maribel, Gallur, Miriam, Cigognini, Ilaria Maria, Montanari, Angela, López, Maria Jose, Suárez-Estrella, Francisca, Brunton, Nigel, Luengo, Elisa, Sisti, Laura, Ferri, Maura, Belotti, Gianluca, 20.500.12327/1725, free,

Recycling agricultural waste

(File:NP_India_burning_48_(6315309342).jpg|thumb|right|Burning of rice residues in southeast Punjab, India, prior to wheat season)Agricultural waste consists mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.JOURNAL, Awogbemi, Vandi Von Kallon, December 2022, Pretreatment techniques for agricultural waste, Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, 6, 100229, 10.1016/j.cscee.2022.100229, 250272032, free, Agricultural waste is poorly digestible and in unprocessed form not widely suitable as animal feed.WEB, Cone, John, Fungi turns straw into digestible feed,weblink 20 November 2022, Wageningen University & Research, Sometimes, agricultural waste is burnt, either as biomass in power plants or simply on land.JOURNAL, Shafer, 2020, Global crop waste burning – micro-biochar; how a small community development organization learned experientially to address a huge problem one tiny field at a time, Sustainable Earth, 3, 10.1186/s42055-020-00037-y, 227122083, free, Burning agricultural waste on land is called stubble burning and is still common in countries like China and India where a third of the world's population lives.JOURNAL, Jain, Bhatia, Pathak, 2014, Emission of air pollutants from crop residue burning in India,weblink 23 December 2022, Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 14, 422–430, 10.4209/aaqr.2013.01.0031, free, JOURNAL, Sun, Peng, Chen, Wang, Wei, Li, Yang, Zhang, Wang, Mellouki, 2016, An estimation of CO2 emission via agricultural crop residue open field burning in China from 1996 to 2013,weblink 23 December 2022, Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 2625–2631, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.112, Then, instead of being reused to make new products, valuable substances in agricultural waste are turned into CO₂, smog, particulate matter and ash.WEB, Singh Yadav, 4 June 2019, Stubble burning: A problem for the environment, agriculture and humans,weblink 23 December 2022, DownToEarth, Today, burning of agricultural waste is increasingly banned and pruning biomass is used for applications, including woodchipper for bedding soils. Three categories of substances are mainly extracted from agricultural waste: proteins, materials containing cellulose and bioactive substances such as essential oils and carotenoids.JOURNAL, Gomes-Araújo, Rafael, Martínez-Vázquez, Dolores Gabriela, Charles-Rodríguez, Ana Verónica, Rangel-Ortega, Sarahi, Robledo-Olivo, Armando, 2021, Bioactive Compounds from Agricultural Residues, Their Obtaining Techniques, and the Antimicrobial Effect as Postharvest Additives, International Journal of Food Science, 2021, 1–13, 10.1155/2021/9936722, 8463193, 34568485, free, WEB, Jin, Yang, Poe, Huang, 2018, Integrated processing of plant-derived waste to produce value-added products based on the biorefinery concept,weblink 23 December 2022, Trends in food science & technology, The increasing ability to isolate such valuable substances in a pure form increases the economic value of agricultural waste.JOURNAL, Yustira, Harahap, Nasution, Pranata, 24 August 2021, Isolation of cellulose from agricultural waste using different treatments, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 912, 1, 012020, 10.1088/1755-1315/912/1/012020, 2021E&ES..912a2020Y, 244772567, free, File:NP_India_burning_25_(6314805335).jpg|thumb|right|Farmer burning, on a large scale, pruning and agricultural waste, leading to smogsmog

Impact of agricultural waste on the environment

The world's population and livestock size is growing and that is where the rising demand for food comes from. The average European is expected to consume 165 grams of meat per person daily.WEB, Daily meat consumption per person, 2019,weblink 20 November 2022, Our World in Data, People around the world consume an average of 75 pounds of meat per person per year.WEB, OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2015,weblink 22 November 2022, OECD iLibrary, Global meat consumption has more than doubled since 1990.WEB, Meat consumption worldwide from 1990 to 2021, by meat type,weblink 23 November 2022, Statista, Producing {{cvt|1|kg}} of beef requires an average of {{cvt|25|kg}} of crop.WEB, Feed required to produce one kilogram of meat or dairy product,weblink 24 November 2022, Our World in Data, The production of all this food also results in more and more agricultural waste.In large quantities, agricultural waste can have a negative impact on the environment and habitat, for example through greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of unpleasant odours, and toxic liquids that can infiltrate water sources.JOURNAL, Rappert, Müller, 2005, Odor compounds in waste gas emissions from agricultural operations and food industries,weblink 22 December 2022, Waste Management (New York, N.Y.), 25, 9, 887–907, 10.1016/j.wasman.2005.07.008, 16129591, 2005WaMan..25..887R, WEB, 26 October 2022, Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in Europe,weblink 22 December 2022, European Environment Agency, The frequent and large-scale burning of agricultural waste also has negative health impacts on people who are exposed to toxic smog through the fires. Particularly in early autumn, large-scale burning of agricultural wastes worldwide results in frequent smog.WEB, 16 August 2021, Toxic blaze: the true cost of crop burning,weblink 20 November 2022, United Nations Environment Programme, The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies smog due to agricultural waste burning as one of the largest sources of ambient air pollution. All forms of air pollution combined cause 7 million deaths annually, including 650,000 children.WEB, Air pollution,weblink 18 November 2022, World Health Organization, File:Waste_hierarchy.svg|thumb|right|Schematic representation of the 368x368pxBesides the impact on air quality, burning of agricultural waste in fields also has a negative impact on soil fertility, economic development and climate.JOURNAL, December 2020, Stubble burning: Effects on health & environment, regulations and management practices, Environmental Advances, 10.1016/j.envadv.2020.100011, Abdurrahman, Muhammad Isa, Chaki, Sukalpaa, Saini, Gaurav, 2, 100011, 226315102, free, The absence of environmentally friendly agricultural waste management further leads to animal suffering, water pollution, fertilisation, and decline in biodiversity, among others.WEB, Kukreja, Rinkesh, Causes, Effects and Solutions of Agricultural Pollution on Our Environment,weblink 20 November 2022, Conserve Energy Future, According to the waste hierarchy, burning agricultural waste for the sake of energy generation is a less environmentally friendly treatment method than recycling or reusing it. Moreover, incineration for energy generation can be done once, while consumer goods (such as paper made from agricultural waste) can be recycled another seven times.WEB, Why Paper Can't Be Recycled Infinitely,weblink 20 November 2022, This Is Eco, 28 November 2020, After this, it can possibly still be burned for energy, or even converted into biogas or compost through fermentation.JOURNAL, 2020, Production of Biogas using method of agricultural waste fermentation, IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 10.1088/1757-899X/941/1/012019, Kokieva, G. E., Protodiakonova, G. P., Dondokov, U. Z., Shalbuev, D. V., Voinash, SA, 941, 1, 012019, 2020MS&E..941a2019K, 234430421, free, In an effort to reduce the negative impact of agricultural waste on earth, some companies have focused on developing new technologies that allow agricultural waste to be put to meaningful use and returning to traditional non-combustion use.

Agricultural burning in California

California accepts burning as a tool to remove weeds, prevent disease and control pests, especially for rice and pears. Burning is allowed in Permissive Burn Days.Agricultural Burning California Air Resource Board

Applications

Several companies worldwide use leftover agricultural waste to make new products.WEB, 11 July 2019, From agricultural waste to marketable products,weblink 22 December 2022, European Commission, Reusing agricultural waste is in line with the desired circular economy. In today's economy, primary raw materials are mostly used.WEB, Raw materials,weblink 24 December 2022, European Commission, Agricultural waste, on the other hand, is a secondary raw material. They are residual (waste) streams from an existing industry that can serve as raw materials for new applications. Increasingly reusing materials as raw materials for the production process contributes to the EU goal of achieving a circular economy by 2050.WEB, Circular economy action plan,weblink 2 December 2022, Environment Department EU,

Fiberboard

CalFibre from USA has developed and build the worlds first rice straw-based medium density fiberboard (MDF) plant, located in Willows, CA. By utilizing rice-straw instead of timber, CalFibre spares the equivalent of 4,200 acres of forest (roughly 180,000 metric tons of wood) from logging, with the harvesting and transportation of such emitting 150,000 tons of CO2e. Additionally, preventing rice straw decomposition eliminates 66,000 tons of methane gas each year, equivalent to around 1.848 million tons of CO2. This approach also saves up to 18 billion gallons of water annually (meeting the yearly water requirements of 500,000 Bay Area residents) and curtails 1.4 million tons of CO2 emissions linked with water management. The second plant is currently being built in Egypt.

Paper and board

Agricultural waste is used as a raw material for sustainable paper and board by the company PaperWise. The stalks and leaves that remain after harvesting are processed into raw material for paper and board. With PaperWise, the cellulose needed for paper is extracted from agricultural waste. This replaces the proportion of cellulose fibres from trees, meaning that these trees do not need to be cut down for paper production, but can be left to absorb COâ‚‚ and convert it into oxygen. Made from agricultural waste, this paper and board meets high quality standards and is available as printing paper, among other things.WEB, High quality and environmentally friendly paper and paperboard,weblink 3 December 2022, PaperWise, It is also used for sustainable packaging and eco-friendly office products.

Bio-based oil

Vertoro is a spin-off of a public-private partnership between Brightlands Chemelot Campus, DSM, Chemelot InSciTe, Maastricht University (UM) and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), which are making 100% bio-based oil from agricultural waste, among other things, as an alternative to fossil oil.WEB, Our Technology,weblink 3 December 2022, Vertoro,

Leather

Fruitleather Rotterdam makes handbags and shoes based on discarded fruit. Because 40% does not meet the requirements of supermarket chains, for example a crooked cucumber or a slightly deformed tomato, a lot of fruit goes to waste.WEB, Introduction,weblink 1 December 2022, Fruitleather Rotterdam, Fruitleather Rotterdam has therefore developed an eco-friendly production process that converts fruit waste into sustainable leather-like material.

Catering disposables

Eco-Products from USA sell catering disposables based on various agricultural waste streams.WEB, Wheat Straw Clamshells,weblink 2 December 2022, Eco Products, These disposables are used for events, parties and single-use circumstances.

Fuel

In Finland, the joint venture Suomen Lantakaasu has been established by dairy producer Valio and energy company St1 to produce sustainable transport fuel. This uses a biogas plant fed by manure and agricultural waste from Finland.WEB, Valio and St1 joint venture, Suomen Lantakaasu Oy, ready to increase domestic biogas production,weblink 2 December 2022, Valio,

Plastic

PlasticFri is a Swedish startup that produces sustainable biocomposites. The startup's proprietary technology extracts fibrous materials from agricultural waste and non-edible plants to create an eco-friendly plastic alternative. PlasticFri's material contains no harmful substances and is fully biodegradable.WEB, Technology,weblink 2 December 2022, PlasticFri, 13 May 2022,

Awareness

Most farmers in developing countries are not aware of the alternative applications and therefore consider burning as the best option.BOOK, Agricultural Solid Wastes: Causes, Effects, and Effective Management,weblink 3 December 2022, IntechOpen, 2021, 10.5772/intechopen.93601, Oluseun Adejumo, Isaac, Adebukola Adebiyi, Olufemi, 978-1-83962-559-6, 230572722, Therefore, large-scale awareness programmes are needed to;

• Recognise agricultural waste as a waste stream.
• Educate on the adverse effects of low-grade waste treatment methods such as incineration and landfill.
• Educate farmers on the availability of economically viable options higher up the waste hierarchy and their benefits to themselves and the environment.

See also

• Environmental monitoring
• Eutrophication
• Plasticulture
• Plastic pollution
• Pruning

References

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