Published Paper Details:

Bio-waste from food processing and other household related sources like flowers/ornamentals are a menace as they surely end up in landfills or dumpsters. Specially, food waste and floral ornamentals from a marriage/party hall are bigger sources for dumpsters. Getting piled up routinely, these biological wastes are degraded by anaerobic microbes resulting in an unpleasant stunk leading to compromised elegance of the surroundings. Interestingly, the plant parts considered waste are in fact rich sources of bioactive principles with greater therapeutic potential for various ailments. The wastes usually include peel, leaves, seeds of vegetables and petals of old flowers. Most of these plant products have been indicated to possess considerable quantities of various phytochemicals with potential biological activities. Owing to the marked rise in the food industry activities, there is an enormous scale of food waste generated globally. Quercetin, gallic acid, ferulic acid, resveratrol are a few popular examples of phytochemicals reported among biological wastes like peels of banana, orange, apple, seeds of guava, avocado, and petals of lilies and roses which are usually generated at home. These bioactives/ nutraceuticals have been indicated to possess significant biological activities ranging from antioxidant to anticancer properties. Numerous secondary metabolites, minerals and vitamins have been extracted from food waste, using various extraction approaches. Shortly, these approaches could provide an innovative approach to increase the production of specific compounds for use as nutraceuticals/functional food. However, there is an urgent need for a meticulous awareness program for processing these wastes at the household and locality levels. There is constant research for exploring the utilization of these bioactive by-products, to prevent pollution and related adversities. Here we review a definite list of plant wastes generated at home and their pharmaceutical propensities.