Food Ultrasound

Oranges are one of the most heavily produced crops on the planet, with roughly 47 million tons grown globally in 2024 alone. What rarely makes it into that headline number is what happens to everything left over once the fruit is juiced. Peel, albedo, and the tough inner core can account for up to 55% of an orange's total weight, and at that scale, citrus waste isn't a minor disposal issue; it's a genuine environmental problem. Left to decompose, millions of tons of citrus residue release significant volumes of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, every single year, adding up to an easy footprint to overlook precisely because it happens after the product most people care about the juice has already left the factory. A new study published in PLOS ONE takes direct aim at that waste stream, asking a question that's becoming increasingly common across food science: instead of treating orange peel as a disposal problem, can it be turned into something gen...