Towards sustainable society: Design of food waste recycling machine

Qatar is one of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of per capita food waste; which ranges from 584 to 657 kilograms per year. The combination of high food consumption rate and very low food waste recycle rate, results in mountains of food dumped into landfills where they get burned and therefore produce harmful gases. In this paper, we are introducing a practical solution for every household to recycle the food waste instead of sending it to the landfill. The solution is to design an eco-friendly machine that converts food waste to fertilizer. The use of recycled food waste as compost improves the soil health and structure, increases drought resistance and reduces the need for supplemental water, fertilizers and pesticides. The composting process is fully automated, it consists of several steps under controlled environmental conditions (i.e. temperature, humidity) to fasten the process. A mechanism is designed to reduce food waste volume by over two-thirds. Also, experiments were conducted to figure out the best conditions of temperature, moisture content and the bulking agent that would result in a highquality homemade fertilizer within hours. The aesthetics aspect was considered by designing an elegant and socially accepted machine with a suitable size to be placed in any kitchen.