Food Waste as a Transitional Key Factor Towards Circular Economy

Abstract

Food waste becomes raw material for new cycles. Based on this assumption, the paper explores the food life cycles by starting from the process of wasting and then going backwards in the circular process that generally begins with production. The paper proposes a journey through projects, experimentations, and startups where communities are put at the centre and, in a way, drive social innovation ahead of food industry and large-scale distribution. From processing food waste to produce new food or zero-miles products (such as sustainable packaging), to distributing surplus through innovative services for communities, ultimately this overview helps to orientate in the consumption to disposal phase. It proposes, indeed, new ways of recycling and reusing food waste as a resource for new ecological materials. These innovative prototypes have been developed as concrete actions with the aim to persuade users to change their behaviours, while simultaneously exploring cultural, social, and economic perceptions of food waste. These practices face the challenge of building an alternative economy in which the innovative social enterprises, addressing design-based culture, can play the fundamental role of social actors able to create new values alongside the economic ones.