Animal Feed Made from Food Waste Causes Damage to Human Body

It is reported that compost and animal feed made from food waste wreaks a serious havoc on crops, animals and even human body.

Rep. Lee In-gi of the Grand National Party said yesterday that compost made from food waste contains much salt, thereby reducing the crop yield, and that animal feed made from food waste contains rotten or toxic substances, causing damage to human body.

The Environment Ministry has instructed local governments to use food waste to make compost and animal feed since 1999 aimed at turning food waste into resources.

Local governments have made compost based on a related regulation stating that compost made from food waste should contain less than 1% of salt. But even this standard is turned out to reduce crop yield.

According to a study release in a symposium organized by the National Institute of Environmental Research last October, when compost with 1% of salt was used for lettuce cultivation for four consecutive times, the yield declined by 42%. The yield dropped by 51% and 76% when the compost was used for six consecutive times and for three years respectively.

Rep. Lee argued that compost that has been produced might contain 2% to 3% of salt, higher than the standard 1%.

According to a report published in 1999 by the Rural Development Administration, food waste from restaurants and households contains 3.36% and 4.84% of salt respectively, and vegetable waste contains 0.78% of salt. Compost made from food and vegetable waste acidifies soil and dramatically reduce crop yield.

In order to use food waste to make compost, companies should add sawdust or wash food waste to reduce the salinity. But Rep. Lee said that few companies can meet the standard since most of companies don`t have the system to reduce salinity and the cost to purchase sawdust is too expensive.

He also noted that animal feed made from food waste is harmful as well.

It generally takes 3 to 4 days to collect food waste. During the process, food waste gets rotten or mixed up with other harmful substances such as vinyl, plastic, cigarette-butts or heavy metals. These materials remain in feed animal, causing direct damage to human body and animals.

Rep. Lee said, "As of 2001, more than 4 million tons of food waste is generated per day. 55% of it is used as animal feed. But the government has ignored the repeated warnings and failed to address the fatal threat to the public.

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com