Arnon devours food waste

06/09/2016

For her master’s project at the University of Antwerp, Belgian student Kathleen Vinck has designed the Arnon device for recycling food waste. In most catering businesses food waste is discarded with residual waste to be incinerated afterwards. However, this is not environmentally sound as separately collected organic waste can serve as compost.

The Arnon device has been developed for recycling food waste in catering businesses. “But that’s precisely where the shoe pinches in big catering businesses which discard mountains of food waste with their residual waste, often for reasons of convenience, for lack of space or due to economic reasons”, says Kathleen Vinck, student product development. “Therefore I devised a way of collecting food waste and treating it partly on the spot.” 

The staff is sorting out the food waste before it enters the device. Then the process of waste decomposition on the basis of dishwashing water is started. Indeed, Arnon needs water to thoroughly rinse off the food waste. Moreover the dishwashing water is recycled. Once the mass has been reduced, the moisture is extracted from it in order to limit odour nuisance. 

The device presents a number of remarkable assets such as reduced odour nuisance,  hygienic processing and  low maintenance. In addition Arnon is economically beneficial to the catering businesses as the quantity of waste is reduced, resulting in less charges for waste collection. CO2 emissions are reduced thanks to the smaller output. Finally the biomass can be used for composting after the process.

For the elaboration of her master project, Kathleen Vinck was supported by Reco-vert, a brand-new company that will officially open its doors in October.  Reco-vert specialises in waste treatment in catering businesses by means of technological applications. Arnon will be further developed by this company before it can be  put on the market.