Mitigation of environment crisis: conversion of organic plant waste to valuable products

Handling and disposing of agro-industrial wastes remains challenging nowadays, and many agricultural wastes are available in our environment. Various methods currently designed to handle these wastes aim to accomplish dual goals—first, to mitigate their hazardous effects on the environment through removing impurities present in the wastes and, second, to add value to the wastes to contribute toward a circular economy. Thus it is crucial to allow modification and recovery of valuable materials in all food sectors. Among horticultural crops, fruits and vegetables are the food items that are most frequently consumed. Depending on the nature and method of preparation, these foods are eaten raw, barely cooked, or thoroughly cooked. The cultivation and processing of horticultural crops have advanced vividly in response to changing dietary preferences and population growth. Fruit and vegetable-based industries generate a lot of waste, which has caused severe nutritional and economic losses and environmental issues. The present chapter discusses various environmentally benign methods of converting plant/agro-industrial wastes while mitigating environmental pollution and waste management problems. The immense potential of these generated biomass wastes in producing various fermented products, such as biodiesel, bioelectricity, biohydrogen, organic acids, enzymes, animal feed, and others, are also essentially highlighted. Also, the utilization of inexpensive agricultural wastes to produce value-added products through the adoption of innovative processing techniques for sustainable use has also been the strong motivation for this chapter. With the world’s population expanding, there is a greater need for food products that are both very nutritious and affordable. Therefore it is critical to recover nutrients from waste and food sources to aid the next generation.