Food Waste Management in Rajshahi City Corporation, Bangladesh: Challenges and Opportunities

Bangladesh is facing the problem of food waste management like other countries in the world. In Bangladesh, around 70% of municipal waste is food waste. Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) area was selected as a study area to represent the situation of Bangladesh. The study was aimed to identify key challenges and opportunities to food waste management focused on Rajshahi City Corporation. An online-based survey was conducted through 300 respondents to collect the primary data and analysis. To investigate the association among gender with knowledge chi-square was conducted and found a significant association. From the analysis, we found that lack of knowledge about food waste, absence of source separation, below collection capacity, low budget for waste management may hinder systematic food waste management. For instance, the first opportunity is electricity production through the anaerobic digestion (AD) process that fulfills the increasing electricity demand. Second is digestate will be produced as a byproduct in that process, which is one type of bio fertilizer, use for safe food production. The third is employment opportunities which will be generated in the AD plant, where many unemployed people can get a job. Fourth is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from food waste which helps to clean the environment. From the findings, it can be concluded that the present research would be helpful for food waste management in RCC as well as their possible use in different fields.