Upcycling Food Wastes as a Cost-Effective Nutrient Media in Bacterial Rubberized Mortar for Carbon Sequestering

Abstract

Globally, about one-third of food production ends up as waste and is responsible for about 8% of global carbon emissions. The current waste management methods fall short of recycling this waste. The present study aims to upcycle food waste as a cost-effective nutrient media for carbon sequestration and bio-cementation in bacterial mortars. In this work, food wastes have been recycled using two different strategies to develop powder-based and pulp-based nutrient media. Powder-based nutrient media shows higher bacterial growth for E. Coli DH5 α, and was used for the preparation of bacterial solution. The bacterial solution prepared with food waste was used along with waste tyre rubber fibres for the development of different bacterial mortars. Bacterial mortars were experimentally compared with non-bacterial mortars. Bacterial mortar prepared with food waste shows improved microstructure, doubles the compressive strength (increase by 105.94%), shows self-healing ability, reduces carbon emissions/unit strength (decrease by 42.89–43.38%) and lowers the cost/unit strength (decrease by 26.80%). The present study demonstrates that food waste can be upcycled as a value-added raw material for both carbon sequestration and bio-cementation. Using food waste as nutrient media in bacterial mortars can contribute to sustainability by managing food waste and carbon sequestration. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025.