INFEWS/T2: Organic Waste Lifecycles at the interface of Food, Energy, Water Systems (OWL-FEWs)

About This Grant

Interconnected food-energy-water (FEW) demands are increasing due to increasing population and economic growth. One of the major reasons for these increased demands is the generation of non-utilized waste streams. The U.S. generates approximately 254 million tons of trash each year, with only 34% of this waste recycled or composted. Increasing restrictions on the export of garbage has generated both challenges and opportunities for the management of waste systems. Waste material provides and opportunity for materials recovery, the generation of new products and processes, and the potential to positively impact food, energy, and water systems. Given the increasing rates of consumption internationally, developing the next generation of waste recovery is of global significance. However, reinventing waste streams requires a better understanding of how waste is currently governed, rethinking and redesigning waste recovery production systems to better capture the value of material, developing systems for monitoring material composition, integration with new cyber infrastructure for waste monitoring, and incorporating the behavioral and policy structures that influence action across complex multi-scaled systems. The objectives of the project are to develop a systems-level framework for comparative analysis of organic waste lifecycles that combines behavior sciences with material flows analysis to rethink waste systems and the development of new co-products from organic wastes. This proposal focuses on systems-level interactions in the framework of "Organic Waste Lifecycles at the Interface of Food, Energy and Water Systems (OWL-FEWs)." The project entails the development of the next generation of cyber-infrastructure for measuring, monitoring, and capturing data on organic waste streams; analysis of social and institutional drivers behind organic waste disposal behavior; and experimentation, development, and testing of new co-products from organic waste streams. Utilizing an existing pilot-scale anaerobic digester, bio/hydrochar engineering facilities, open source radio frequency identification tagging for real time tracking of waste flows, and a series of behavior experiments and comparative institutional analysis of human behavior, the research team will focus on five goals: 1) The development of a dynamic model of organic waste lifecycles at a regional level; 2) The development and testing of organic food waste co-products for energy, soil amendments, water remediation, and other uses; 3) The development of a smart organic food waste cyber infrastructure; 4) The integration of social sciences across the development of the dynamic model, cyberinfrastructure, and waste/resource products; and 5) The engagement of stakeholders across the research and educational efforts. The results of this research will provide meaningful pathways to reducing waste in the U.S. and provide water treatment, energy, and agricultural resources from waste, leading to better food, energy, and water security in the U.S. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.