Decision-Making Process in the Circular Economy: A Case Study on University Food Waste-to-Energy Actions in Latin America

Economies have begun to shift from linear to circular, adopting, among others, waste-to-energy approaches. Waste management is known to be a paramount challenge, and food waste (FW) in particular, has gained the interest of several actors due to its potential impacts and energy recovery opportunities. However, the selection of alternative valorization scenarios can pose several queries in certain contexts. This paper evaluates four FW valorization scenarios based on anaerobic digestion and composting, in comparison to landfilling, by applying a consistent decision-making framework through a combination of linear programming, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The evaluation was built upon a case study of five universities in Costa Rica and portrayed the trade-offs between environmental impacts and cost categories from the scenarios and their side flows. Results indicate that the landfill scenario entails higher Global Warming Potential and Fresh Water Eutrophication impacts than the valorization scenarios; however, other impact categories and costs are affected. Centralized recovery facilities can increase the Global Warming Potential and the Land Use compared to semi-centralized ones. Experts provided insights, regarding the ease of adoption of composting, in contrast to the potential of energy sources substitution and economic savings from anaerobic digestion.