Early in December, the last meeting of this year was held during the project activity “Dialogue with Science”, attended by more than 30 stakeholders. Since the separate collection system of biological waste will introduced throughout Latvia starting from the next year, the topic of the webinar was about food and biological waste. Such regular meetings help to make dialogue with universities and strengthen mutual awareness among scientists and experts from public sector on current issues.
At the beginning of the meeting participants were informed about the latest achievements in the LIFE Waste to Resources IP project and news within the activity “Building dialogue and cooperation with academic and science sector”. One important update from the project is that a draft for Strategy for dialogue with science is developed, the other is that work on planning the contest for students and young researchers has been started. The contest will be launched early in 2024 and contest results of scientific research work will be announced by the end of May. Topic for scientific research works – food and biological waste.
The meeting with the presentation was attended by lecturer Imants Plūme from Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, who shared the results of the study on how food and agricultural residues are used to produce biogas and fertilizer. The purpose of the presentation was to provide insight of problems which occurs with the processing of traditional food and agricultural residues and to provide solutions for dealing with those residues, promoting their rational management, environmental protection, and climate neutral development.
The meeting switched from academic knowledge to practical data from various studies. Rūta Bendere, representative of the Waste Management Association of Latvia, shared data and results achieved in practical sorting of food and bio-waste in households in Riga, Liepāja and Preiļi within the LIFE Waste to Resources IP project. She also informed that a new technology – an automatic composting facility will be installed in landfill “Kaudzītes” in Gulbene municipality, where composting of separately collected biological and food waste from the Gulbene, Alūksne and Balvi muncipalities will take place.
As food waste in Latvia currently makes large proportion of the total amount of municipal waste, food waste in educational institutions is a problem that needs to find solution as well. The food surplus on the plate produces not only food waste, but it also means that resources consumed for processing and transportation to the consumer has been wasted. Therefore, Ingrīda Millere, a representative of Riga City Council, shared the data of the study “How much food is wasted in Riga schools” which was carried out during this year within the project “Innovative strategies in public catering”.
Maryna Zhylina, PhD student of the Institute of Agricultural Recourses and Economics, in a simply manner about complicated topic presented the idea about the difficulties in soil improvement process and granulation of bio-waste and how it can be applied.
The webinar was concluded by Vineta Kleinberga, a researcher at Rīga Stradiņš University, who shared the challenges of communication issues related to food and biological waste in Latvian society, analyzing the socio-economic context of food waste generation and food production and distribution in companies, emphasizing that it is important to assess the importance of food waste prevention in the Latvian economy. One of the most challenging issues in communication is that citizens are still unable to assess the amount of their own generated waste, lack of knowledge what exactly food waste is, and how to measure it accurately.
We invite you to read the presentations here:
1. S.Svarupa, Highlights of the LIFE IP ‘Waste to resources’ project;
2. I.Plūme, The use of food and agricultural residues for the production of biogas and fertilisers;
3. R.Bendere, Pilot-projects of the sorting of food and bio-waste within the LIFE IP project ‘Waste to resources’;
4. I.Millere, The study “How much food is discarded in Riga Schools” within the project “Innovative strategies in public catering”;
5. M.Zhylina, Soil improvement and granulation of bio-waste;
6. V.Kleinberga, Food and bio-waste: communication challenges.
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