To develop a novel drying treatment method for food waste containing a hardly crushable material, capable of smoothly and efficiently performing the drying treatment of food waste such as lunch, fast food by separating a food component and the hardly crushable material in charging food waste in a dryer, and an apparatus using this method.

Food waste W0 is separated into the food component W1 and the hardly crushable material W2, and the food component W1 is charged into a dryer 1 in a pasty state. When charging the food component W1, the load on the dryer is set to a stabilized state to make it possible to avoid such situation that the charging port 18 of the dryer 8 is clogged and drying treatment efficiency is lowered because the mixing/stirring of the food component W1 is obstructed by the hardly crushable material W2 such as a packaging material. By this constitution, the food waste W0 can be efficiently dried.