Faculty Advisor
Christie Klimas
Abstract
Current commercial landfill diversion techniques typically focus on recycling, but this method can be environmentally costly when compared scenarios involving the implementation of composting or waste reduction within large facilites. A life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to provide better information on the environmental impact of different landfill diversion strategies. In this LCA, the impacts of individiual products were quantified in terms of global warming potential, which provides comparable impact categories for analysis. This study gathered information from previous literature about plant-based and omnivorous diets to simulate what the possible impact would be for a city, like Chicago, to implement a large-scale composting initative within facilites such as hospitals. The results of this study suggests that composting had a high environmental pay off as a waste diversion technique, especially when coupled with a plant structured diet and waste reduction.
Recommended Citation
Amodeo, Demeri E. and Klimas, Christie
(2021)
"A Life Cycle Assessment of Hospital Food Waste: A Model For Large Scale Commercial Impact Reduction,"
DePaul Discoveries: Volume 10, Article 5.
Available at:
https://via.library.depaul.edu/depaul-disc/vol10/iss1/5