Abstract: As a new pollutant, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) pose a risk of accumulation and spread in food waste. Among the common treatment technologies of food waste, aerobic composting is not only simple to operate, but also can realize resource utilization on the spot and nearby, and can effectively reduce ARGs in food waste and control their spread, meanwhile, which is of great significance to achieve sustainable development, protect human health and ecological environment. At present, most studies mainly focus on the ARGs reduction in aerobic composting of organic solid waste, such as livestock manure and sludge, and relative research on food waste is not deep enough. The types of ARGs in food waste and its aerobic composting process, the transmission paths and mechanisms of ARGs among humans, animals, plants and food waste were reviewed, and the impacts of physicochemical parameters (temperature, water content, pH, O2 content, C/N ratio and granularity of raw material, etc.) and exogenous additives (microbial agents, leavening agents and biochar, etc.) on the reduction of ARGs during composting were systematically analyzed. Meanwhile, some possible future research directions, such as strengthening the exploration of the relationship between physicochemical parameters and the growth and decline of ARGs, and studying the propagation mechanism of ARGs under different environmental conditions were proposed, which could provide theoretical references for the further optimization of composting technology of food waste, the control of the spread risk of ARGs and improvement of ARGs reduction effect.

Key words: food waste, antibiotic resistance genes, aerobic composting, physical and chemical parameters, exogenous additives