Our Food Waste Problem & What You Can Do to Help
Photo Credit © Taz on Wikimedia Commons; (see license); no changes were made.
Can you guess the single largest contributor to US landfills? It’s not paper, plastic or old household items… it’s food. Right now, food thrown-out by local grocers, restaurants, schools and individuals takes up nearly 22% of the space in municipal landfills [FN1].
However, it’s not just a US problem. Around the world, humans generate an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food waste annually [FN2]. This often-unnecessary waste is filling-up landfills, hurting the environment and leaving billions without food.
Thankfully, food waste is a problem you can help solve! Here we’ll explain how food waste is classified, why it’s such a problem and how to reduce it.
Farm to Plate: Names for Food Loss and Waste
Depending on when food is discarded, experts classify it into one of three groups: food loss, pre-consumer waste or post-consumer waste.
Food Loss
The first category of waste, known as food loss, includes all food discarded between harvest and retail. Crops and meat that are purposefully not harvested, thrown-out or otherwise eliminated before reaching stores (and not repurposed for feed or seed) are considered food loss. These items may be trashed because they don’t meet retailers’ standards or not harvested/transported because of labor shortages, poor demand or food safety scares [FN3].
Pre-Consumer Food Waste
Pre-consumer waste, also known as “kitchen waste,” is all food that’s thrown-out by processors, packagers, retailers, restaurants or cafeterias [FN4]. In short, it’s the waste produced while processing and/or cooking food. Pre-consumer waste occurs as a result of spoilage, trimming (e.g. removing skin or bones), contamination, preparation mistakes (e.g. burning the food) and overproduction. Food recalls also contribute to pre-consumer waste [FN5]. This type of waste accounts for about two-thirds of post-retail food waste.
Post-Consumer Food Waste
Also known as “plate waste,” post-consumer waste encompasses all food trashed after purchase. It’s primarily a result of wasteful consumer behaviors, large serving sizes (either pre-plated or self-service), substandard food or – in school cafeterias – too little meal and recess time [FN4, FN5].
Why Food Waste is a Problem
Experts estimate that up to one-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted [FN6]. This widespread disposal of excess or imperfect food hurts our economy, health and environment.
At a local level, food waste is a problem for producers, retailers, vendors and even individuals – all of whom lose a lot of money when food is thrown out. Americans waste an estimated 40% of produced food, or an average of 20 pounds of food per person per month. Before you even consider secondary effects of food waste, that’s millions of meals, billions of hours of labor, and hundreds of billions of dollars in land, seeds, feed, water and chemicals that go to waste each year [FN3].
On a global level, food waste is problematic because of its significant carbon footprint. Experts estimate that rotting food in landfills generates 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year which, if food waste were a country, would make it the world’s third largest producer of greenhouse gases [FN2].
This pile of waste feeds a vicious cycle. Greenhouse gas emissions speed climate change, which threatens food production – especially in vulnerable regions, like Sub-Saharan Africa – and worsens food insecurity. Therefore, in addition to not helping feed the two billion people already living with food insecurity, excessive food waste also worsens nutritional prospects for Earth’s future citizens [FN7].
How to Reduce Everyday Food Waste
The silver lining to our unused food problem is that much of the waste is preventable, and small changes lead to big results. In fact, one report found that reducing US food waste by just 15% could feed more than 25 million hungry Americans each year [FN6].
Plus, reducing personal food waste is a great way to save money, protect the environment and help your community. Here are five easy ways to reduce food waste at home [FN8]:
1. Plan meals before you go to the store. If you know what you have and what you need, you can buy only foods you plan to eat and reduce wasteful spoilage.
2. Chop and freeze extra produce. If you buy too many bananas, peppers, onions, berries or other fresh fruits or veggies, take a few minutes to chop them up and freeze them instead of letting them rot. (This same trick also works for meat, bread and some dairy products.)
3. Repurpose imperfect food. If you have bread that’s stale, produce that’s past its prime or leftover meat trimmings, be creative about finding a way to use this imperfect food instead of tossing it out.
4. Practice portion control (and embrace leftovers). Whether it’s a home-cooked meal or your favorite takeout, only serve what you can realistically eat and then store the rest in the fridge. Plan for leftover meals and, if you hate repetition, think about how to mix up the flavor with new spices or ingredients that can be added into the original meal.
5. Donate foods you won’t eat. If you have shelf-stable food that you don’t like (or that recently expired), put it in a box and donate it to a local food bank or pantry instead of trashing it.
Organizations Working to Reduce Food Waste
Thankfully, many organizations – both public & private – have also realized the opportunity for major, meaningful improvement in food utilization. Here are a just few of the organizations working tirelessly to reduce local and national food waste in the US:
· The United States Government
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), FDA and USDA have partnered to halve food waste in America by 2030. They’re working to promote their Food Recovery Hierarchy (see right), increase public & corporate awareness of food waste prevention strategies, and forge partnerships between public, private & non-profit organizations to reduce waste [FN9-FN11].
· Feeding America
Meal Connect is an online platform created by Feeding America that helps connect potential food donors with local food banks and pantries. The app is free for donors (including restaurants, caterers, grocers and cafeterias), which makes it cheap and easy for them to donate leftover food to local hunger relief organizations instead of sending it straight to the landfill [FN12].
· Food Recovery Network
The Food Recovery Network (FRN) is a student-run organization that helps reduce waste generated by university dining halls. Through FRN, small groups of college students work with dining halls to recover unserved food and transport it to local “hunger fighting partners”, including food banks. Click here to find out if your school has a FRN chapter you can join [FN13].
· SaveTheFood.com
SaveTheFood.com is great site focused on raising awareness about food waste and providing strategies to reduce personal waste. They have tips about meal planning, food storage & prep, plus recipes for not-so-perfect foods and a whole section dedicated to food waste news [FN14].
· Baldor Foods
Baldor Foods is an excellent example of corporate responsibility related to food waste. Baldor is a specialty food delivery company that, in 2016, started the Baldor SparCs program. Through this initiative, they ensure that 100% of fruit and vegetable processing scraps are recycled for human or animal consumption. The grocer works with both chefs and farmers to make sure food goes to good use instead of ending-up in the local landfill [FN15].
There are also many more food companies, restaurant chains and school/university dining operations that have committed to reducing food waste and implemented processes to minimize daily waste – these are just a few of our favorites.
Do you have a favorite strategy for reducing food waste, or a company that you’d like to recognize? Please share them with us in the comments section below!
Resources
2. https://foodtank.com/news/2015/06/world-environment-day-10-facts-about-food-waste-from-bcfn
3. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf
4. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-01/documents/2_leanpath_shakman.pdf
5. https://jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(18)31394-7/fulltext
6. http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/
7. http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/
8. https://www.epa.gov/recycle/reducing-wasted-food-home
10. https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/winning
11. https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy