Biological—waste as resource, with a focus on food waste

The selected papers included in this special issue were presented in the meeting entitled BBiologicalWaste as Resource – with a Focus on FoodWaste^ held during 1–3 December 2014 at The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong. It was organized jointly by the Consortium on Health, Environment, Education and Research (CHEER), Centre for Education in Environmental Sustainability (CEES), The Hong Kong Institute of Education, and Croucher Institute for Environmental Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, and sponsored by the Environment Conservation Fund (ECF) of the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department. The conference focused on Brecycling^ and Brecovery^ of organic waste (biomass) which included agricultural waste (plant residues and animal manure), biosolid (sewage sludge), food waste, paper/yard/wood waste, municipal waste, and waste cooking oil, through microbial degradation, to produce valuable products and energy sources. BRecycling^ is the reprocessing of materials into new products, which will lessen the environmental impact and at the same time conserve a significant amount of energy and raw materials, whereas Brecovery^ refers to the recovery of embedded energy within waste materials through energy generation. A special session is devoted to Bfood waste,^ as it is a timely topic in densely populated urban centres such as Hong Kong. There were 55 oral and 21 poster presentations during the meeting. All the authors were invited to submit their full papers, to be included as a special issue of Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR). There were more than 40 submissions. Each paper submitted was handled by amember of the Editorial Board of ESPR and sent out for review. Finally, only 16 papers were included in this special issue, after vigorously reviewed. The ultimate goal of this special issue is to demonstrate the feasibility of converting biological wastes into resource and at the same time ease their disposal pressure, and also minimize pollution problems, due to improper treatment and disposal.