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Understanding the current state of food waste is the basis for effective interventions. Based on field research conducted for 133 days, from March to August 2022, and for 25 days in November 2022, totaling 158 days, this study obtained first-hand data on the waste and consumption of 103 food items in ten categories at sample restaurants in different regions and city levels, and of different operation sizes in China. A total of 7759 consumers were part of this study, of whom 10 % them were children. The food delivered to a total of 2538 tables was counted as part of this study, and the average number of people per table in this study was three. The research objective was to measure the quantity, composition, and environmental impacts of post-consumer waste in the food service industry at the national level. It was discovered that: (1) Food waste generated by post-consumers in China totaled 7.57 Mt, or 43.98 g per capita per meal in 2022. (2) Fruit was the most important type of waste at 1.51 Mt. (3) Roots and tubers had the highest food waste rate (53 %). (4) The annual food waste resulted in a carbon footprint of 30.67 Mt CO2-eq, a nitrogen footprint of 393.94 million kilograms (Mkg N), a phosphorus footprint of 53.87 Mkg P, a water footprint of 17.09 million litres, and a land footprint of 4.36 million hectares (Mha)., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this work a SPE/GC-FID method, incorporating the use of a 1-g silica cartridge, for the determination of FAEE in olive oils is presented. The procedure has been fully validated, initially 'in-house' and subsequently by an international validation study involving sixteen laboratories from Europe, the United States of America, and China. Key performance parameters of the method are: (1) Linearity in the 10-134 mg/kg range (R 2  > 0.999), (2) LOD and LOQ < 0.5 mg/kg, (3) RSD r  < 10%, (4) RSD R  < 20% (for 4 out of 5 test materials). In addition, the method has been demonstrated to provide equivalent results to the Official Method (Commission Regulation 2568/91) while providing advantages in terms of reductions in time and solvents and ease of automation. In fact, the proposed protocol requires 30 mL solvents and takes 1.5 h per determination instead of the 350 mL and 6 h needed in the UE Official Method., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

A Human-health Risk Assessment was performed for an agricultural site in North-East Italy undergone digestate application to (i) check the compliance of digestate land spreading with the Italian and European regulations on contaminated agricultural soils and (ii) evaluate how resulting risk estimations can be influenced by the applied modeling assumptions. The assessment estimated the risk related to adults and children intake of Heavy Metals (HM) contained in crops at concentrations estimated by a soil-plant transfer model based on the substance-specific soil-water partition coefficients. Eight different scenarios were investigated, according to different digestate type (from biowaste and agro-industrial byproducts), digestate application techniques and soil background concentrations. Non-risky situations resulted in all scenarios involving digestate application. The totality of calculated non-carcinogenic Hazard Indexes ( H I ) and carcinogenic total risk ( RTOT C ) resulted below 0.02 and 3E10 -9 , respectively. In contrast with the definition, non-carcinogenic risks were associated with the considered soil background concentrations, with H I s up to 1.7 for child receptors, while carcinogenic risk was calculated below the concern threshold (i.e., RTOT C < 10 -5 ). Accordingly, this study highlighted (i) non-concerning situations related with lawful application of digestates and (ii) the need to improve the modeling of bioavailability to plant of HMs background content of soil.

Dairy products are an essential part of a healthy diet, and dairy is an emerging food industry in China. With rapid economic development, Chinese consumers are increasingly health-conscious and are becoming more selective about the quality and safety of dairy products. Adopting a qualitative approach, we explored Chinese consumers' perception of dairy food safety and attitudes toward traceable dairy products through 9 focus group interviews administered in 4 urban locations in North and South China, with a total of 61 participants. Results showed that a prevalence of food safety incidents triggers consumers to lower their confidence in food safety and to pay more attention to the news about food safety incidents in the media, including social media. Chemical residues ranked as the first concern for food safety in the dairy industry. Meanwhile, traceable dairy products were not well known among consumers. Although the possibility to trace back all stages of the food supply chain in the dairy sector was considered important, respondents raised doubts about the truthfulness of traceability information., (Copyright © 2020 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Estuaries are dynamic and selective environments that provide frequent opportunities for the turnover of Phragmites australis populations. We studied Phragmites genetic diversity patterns in three of the major deltas of China, viz. the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Liaohe, in relation to Phragmites global phylogeography and soil salinity. We found that two distantly related P. australis haplotypes, each with intercontinental distribution, co-occur in these deltas in China. One is European Phragmites (Haplotype O) and is related to P. japonicus; the other (Haplotype P) has its range in East Asia and Australia and is related to the Asian tropical species P. karka. The two haplotypes have differing salt tolerance, with Haplotype O in areas with the highest salinity and Haplotype P in areas with the lowest. Introgressed hybrids of Haplotype P with P. karka, and F1 hybrids with Haplotype O, have higher salt tolerance than Haplotype P. Phylogenetic diversity appears as the factor that better explains population structure and salinity tolerance in these estuaries. Future research may explain whether the two P. australis haplotypes evolved in East Asia, and East Asia is a center of Phragmites diversity, or are introduced and a threat to P. japonicus and P. karka.