- University of Sheffield Energy Institute researchers are part of a new project to reduce food and plastic waste at home
- Project will expand and enhance a model that can be used to understand the key factors affecting household food waste production
- Updates to the model will help quantify how plastic and food waste reduction can be achieved and the environmental and monetary trade-offs from various solutions
- Resulting guidance will be open access and deployed through a food charity, global industry networks and open access web tools
Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), a new project that is set to help reduce the amount of food and plastic waste that is thrown away by households every year has been launched by researchers.
City, University of London, are leading the project in collaboration with Professor Lenny Koh from the University of Sheffield Energy Institute and Management School. Researchers from The University of Sheffield’s Institute for Sustainable Food and Grantham Centre are also contributing to the project as well as researchers from the University of Greenwich.
The project will expand and enhance the existing ‘Household Simulation Model’ (HHSM) developed by academics from the food waste charity, WRAP. The team in Sheffield also includes Dr Cansu Kandemir (AMRC), Dr Rorie Parsons (Geography) and Sarah Greenwood (Chemistry).
The HHSM utilises discrete event simulation (DES) which is a method of simulating the behaviour and performance of a real-life process or system.
The model consists of four modules which help users understand key factors affecting household food waste production. These modules are shopping, storage, demand and consumption. Each module can be customised for household size and the behaviour of various, typical household decisions on shopping, storing and consuming numerous staple food items.
The updates to the model will focus on:
- plastic packaging options and composition
- household behavioural insights around packaging
- plastic in the supply chain and environmental impacts
The aim is for the updated HHSM to quantify how plastic and food waste reduction may be achieved and the environmental and monetary trade-offs from various solutions.
An optimisation engine, using meta-heuristic algorithms will also be developed and integrated with the updated HHSM to enhance the overall methodology and solutions. Possible solutions may include offering consumers different pack sizes or changing packaging type, shape, reusability or durability.
The most successful solutions will be translated into consumer and industry guidance focusing on the top 30 foods linked to the highest waste and trade-off potential.
This guidance will be open access, and deployed through WRAP and global industry networks, and open access web tools.
It is hoped that this will enable rapid product and food system redesign both in the UK and beyond.
Professor Lenny Koh, Professor in Operations Management at the University of Sheffield Energy Institute, said: “This project, focussed on plastic food packaging, is part of the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) investment from the UKRI and NERC. Through the enhanced HHSM, this research will help manufacturers provide the right type of packaging to reduce both food and plastic waste. We envisage this will not only lead to environmental and economic benefits, but also major impact on relevant policies in the UK and globally.”
Dr Christian Reynolds, Senior Lecturer in Food Policy at City, University of London and who leads the project said: "This is a great opportunity to support the UK to reduce plastic packaging and food waste. Our research work has already been used by UK companies to reduce food waste at home; this funding will allow us to upgrade our model to help UK companies understand how best to reduce plastic food packing, and where it can have the biggest environmental impacts."
The University of Sheffield Energy Institute specialises in research that can help create future supply chains, systems and societies that are resource and energy efficient.
Research from the institute aims to advance the current understanding of the circular economy from economic, environmental and social perspectives, providing policy insights and implications for practice.
The University of Sheffield Energy Institute enables organisations to map their supply chains and identify improvement opportunities in terms of economic, environmental and social factors. It facilitates collaboration between industry, regulators, government and academia to establish and promote sustainable innovations.
One of its facilities, the Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre, supports the development of resource sustainable supply chains by proposing new ways of reducing risk for partners in overcoming the challenges of resource availability.
For more information or to collaborate with the Energy Institute, email: energyinstitute@sheffield.ac.uk