food waste in america essay

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Why should we care about food waste?

In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This is based on USDA estimates of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels. This added up to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.

Most people don’t realize how often they waste food and the negative impacts it can have for food security, the environment, and climate change. Reducing food loss and waste could benefit them, their families, and the world, now and in the future.

Wholesome food that is currently wasted could help feed families in need

• Safe and wholesome food that is currently thrown away could help feed hungry people and reduce food insecurity today. Each year, Feeding America and its network of food banks rescues around 3.6 billion pounds of food. This represents only a small percentage of food that could have been donated but ended up in a landfill.

Reducing food waste can save or make money

• The Business Case for Reducing Food Loss and Waste found that most businesses achieve positive returns from reducing food loss and waste.
• For farmers, businesses, and organizations, the financial incentives to reduce waste can also include tax incentives for donating wholesome, unsold food .
• In some areas, trash pickup is less expensive if volume is reduced by keeping wasted food out of the garbage. In addition, some haulers lower fees if wasted food is separated from the trash and sent to a compost facility instead of the landfill.
• On average, households could save about $370 per person annually. Imagine what a family of four could do with an extra $1,500 each year.

Resources could be conserved for more productive uses

• When food is wasted, so too is the land, water, labor, energy, and other inputs that are used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of the discarded food.

Greenhouse gases generated from food rotting in landfills could be reduced to help mitigate climate change

• According the U.S Environmental Protection Agency , in the United States, food is the single largest category of material placed in municipal landfills, where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 14.1 percent of these emissions in 2017.
• In  2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste to inform domestic policymakers, researchers, and the public about the environmental footprint of food loss and waste in the U.S. and the environmental benefits that can be achieved by reducing U.S. food loss and waste.

Did you know that decomposing food waste releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) with higher warming potential than CO2? To learn more, check out the new USDA and EPA factsheet, Food Waste and Methane: What’s the Connection? (PDF, 2.1 MB)

Additional information on the impacts of food loss and waste and ways to reduce it can be found at Further with Food: Center for Food Loss and Waste Solutions .

Contact Us: Dr. Jean Buzby USDA Food Loss and Waste Liaison [email protected]

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The Problem of Food Waste

Almost half of our food is wasted in the United States. How does this happen? What can we do to solve our enormous food waste problem?

Published: 10/08/18, Last updated: 2/28/24

America wastes roughly 40 percent of its food. 1 Of the estimated 125 to 160 billion pounds of food that goes to waste every year, much of it is perfectly edible and nutritious. Food is lost or wasted for a variety of reasons: bad weather, processing problems, overproduction and unstable markets cause food loss long before it arrives in a grocery store, while overbuying, poor planning and confusion over labels and safety contribute to food waste at stores and in homes. 2 Food waste also has a staggering price tag, costing this country approximately $218 billion per year. 3 Uneaten food also puts unneeded strain on the environment by wasting valuable resources like water and farmland. At a time when 12 percent of American households are food insecure 4 , reducing food waste by just 15 percent could provide enough sustenance to feed more than 25 million people, annually. 5

What Is Wasted Food?

There are two main kinds of wasted food: food loss and food waste. Food loss is the bigger category, and incorporates any edible food that goes uneaten at any stage. In addition to food that’s uneaten in homes and stores, this includes crops left in the field, food that spoils in transportation, and all other food that doesn’t make it to a store. Some amount of food is lost at nearly every stage of food production. 6 Food waste is a specific piece of food loss, which the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS), defines as “food discarded by retailers due to color or appearance and plate waste by consumers.” 7 Food waste includes the half-eaten meal left on the plate at a restaurant, food scraps from preparing a meal at home and the sour milk a family pours down the drain. 8

Where Is Food Lost?

Edible food is discarded at every point along the food chain: on farms and fishing boats, during processing and distribution, in retail stores, in restaurants and at home. 9

Food Loss on Farms

Food production in the US uses 15.7 percent of the total energy budget, 50 percent of all land and 80 percent of all freshwater consumed. 10 11 12 Yet 20 billion pounds of produce is lost on farms every year. 13 Food loss occurs on farms for a variety of reasons. To hedge against pests and weather, farmers often plant more than consumers demand. Food may not be harvested because of damage by weather, pests and disease. Market conditions off the farm can lead farmers to throw out edible food. If the price of produce on the market is lower than the cost of transportation and labor, sometimes farmers will leave their crops un-harvested. This practice, called dumping, happens when farmers are producing more of a product that people are willing to buy, or when demand for a product falls unexpectedly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, farmers lost a major portion of their business due to restaurant and school lunchroom closures. This led them to the painful decision to plow over edible crops and dump up to 3.7 million gallons of milk per day onto fields rather than go through the additional cost of harvesting and processing products they could not sell. 14 While the government has programs to buy excess produce and donate it to food shelves and emergency relief organizations, the highly specialized processing and transportation networks for many products makes donation difficult and expensive. 15 Cosmetic imperfections (leading to so-called “ugly produce”) are another significant source of food waste on farms both before and after harvest, as consumers are less interested in misshaped or blemished items. Food safety scares and improper refrigeration and handling can also force farmers to throw out otherwise edible food. 16  Finally, in recent years, farmers have been forced to leave food in the fields due to labor shortages caused by changing immigration laws. 17

Food Loss on Fishing Boats

A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that eight percent of the fish caught in the world’s marine fisheries is discarded — about 78.3 million tons per year. 18 Discards are the portion of the catch of fish that are not retained and are often returned dead or dying back into the water. 19 Other studies estimate that 40 to 60 percent of the fish caught by European trawlers in the North Sea are discarded at sea. 20 21 And a recent US study found that 16 to 32 percent of bycatch are thrown away by American commercial fishing boats. 22 Tropical shrimp trawling has the highest discard rate and accounts for over 27 percent of total estimated discards. 23  Discarding throws the ocean’s ecosystem off balance by increasing food for scavengers and killing large numbers of target and non-target fish species. 24

Food Loss in Produce Packing Houses

Some produce that does not meet strict retailer or consumer cosmetic standards goes to suppliers for processing, but even if they are willing to accept the produce, the supplier must be close enough to justify transportation costs and able to accept large volumes of produce. These cost barriers make it particularly challenging for small and midsize farmers to get these secondary items to processors. 25

Of the estimated 125 to 160 billion pounds of food that goes to waste every year, much of it is perfectly edible and nutritious.

Food Loss in Manufacturing Facilities

Most waste at manufacturing and processing facilities is generated while trimming off edible portions, such as skin, fat, crusts and peels from food. Some of this is recovered and used for other purposes —  in the US, about 33 percent of food waste from manufacturing goes to animal feed. 26 Even with this recovered and reused material taken out of the calculation, about two billion pounds of food are wasted in the food processing or manufacturing stage. 27 A number of issues, like overproduction, product damage and technical problems at manufacturing facilities contribute to these large quantities of food waste. 28 Much like farms, food processing facilities are vulnerable to labor disruptions and shortages. During the COVID-19 outbreak, many meat processing facilities closed as workers fell ill, which forced processing plants to close. This meant that the animals, which could no longer be processed, were slaughtered and discarded by the thousand. 29

Food Loss in Transportation and Distribution Networks

During food transportation and distribution, perishable foods are vulnerable to loss, especially in developing nations where access to adequate and reliable refrigeration, infrastructure and transportation can be a challenge. While this is not a significant source of food waste in the US; food waste does occur when produce spoils from improper refrigeration. 30 A larger problem occurring at this stage is the rejection of perishable food shipments, which are thrown out if another buyer can’t be found quickly. It is estimated that between two and five percent of food shipments are rejected by food buyers. 31 Even if these goods make it to market, they are often wasted anyway because of shorter shelf lives. Often, rejected food shipments are donated to food rescue organizations, but the quantities are too large to accept. 32

Where is Food Wasted?

Food waste in retail businesses.

An estimated 43 billion pounds of food were wasted in US retail stores in 2010. 33 This is particularly disconcerting given that in 2016, 12.3 percent of American households were food insecure. 34 Most of the loss in retail operations is in perishables, including baked goods, produce, meat, seafood and prepared meals. 35 The USDA estimates that supermarkets lose $15 billion annually in unsold fruit and vegetables alone. 36 Unfortunately, wasteful practices in the retail industry are often viewed as good business strategies. Some of the main drivers for food loss at retail stores include: overstocked product displays, expectation of cosmetic perfection of fruits, vegetables and other foods, oversized packages, the availability of prepared food until closing, expired “sell by” dates, damaged goods, outdated seasonal items, over purchasing of unpopular foods and under staffing. 37

Currently, only 10 percent of edible wasted food is recovered each year, in the US. 38 Barriers to recovering food are liability concerns, distribution and storage logistics and funds needed for gleaning, collecting, packaging and distribution. The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act , signed into law in 1996, provides legal liability protection for food donors and recipients and tax benefits for participating businesses. However, awareness about this law and trust in the protections it offers remains low. 39

15 Easy Ways to Reduce Food Waste

Food Waste in Restaurants and Institutions

US restaurants generate an estimated 22 to 33 billion pounds of food waste each year. Institutions — including schools, hotels and hospitals — generate an additional 7 to 11 billion pounds per year. 40 Approximately 4 to 10 percent of food purchased by restaurants is wasted before reaching the consumer. Drivers of food waste at restaurants include oversized portions, inflexibility of chain store management and extensive menu choices. 41 According to the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, on average, diners leave 17 percent of their meals uneaten and 55 percent of edible leftovers are left at the restaurant. 42 This is partly due to the fact that portion sizes have increased significantly over the past 30 years, often being two to eight times larger than USDA or Federal Drug Administration (FDA) standard servings.

Kitchen culture and staff behavior such as over-preparation of food, improper ingredient storage and failure to use food scraps and trimmings can also contribute to food loss. 43 All-you-can-eat buffets are particularly wasteful, since extra food cannot legally be reused or donated due to health code restrictions. 44 The common practice of keeping buffets fully stocked during business hours (rather than allowing items to run out near closing) creates even more waste.

Food Waste in Households

Households are responsible for the largest portion of all food waste. ReFED estimates that US households waste 76 billion pounds of food per year. 45 Approximately 40 to 50 percent of food waste (including 51 to 63 percent of seafood waste 46 happens at level of the consumer. 47 In the US, an average person wastes 238 pounds of food per year (21 percent of the food they buy), costing them $1,800 per year. 48 In terms of total mass, fresh fruits and vegetables account for the largest losses at the consumer level (19 percent of fruits and 22 percent of vegetables), followed by dairy (20 percent), meat (21 percent) and seafood (31 percent). 49 Major contributors to household food waste include:

• Food Spoilage — About two-thirds of food waste at home is due to food not being used before it goes bad. 50 Food spoilage at home occurs due to improper storage, lack of visibility in refrigerators, partially used ingredients and misjudged food needs. 51
• Over-Preparing — The remaining third of household food waste is the result of people cooking or serving too much food. 52 Cooking portions have increased over time, and large meals often include more food than we can finish. The Cornell Food and Brand lab found that since 2006, serving sizes in the classic cookbook The Joy of Cooking have increased by 36 percent. 53 In addition, people often forget to eat leftovers, and end up throwing them away.
• Date Label Confusion — An estimated 80 percent of Americans prematurely discard food due to confusion over the meaning of date labels ( e.g. , “sell by,” “best if used by,” “expires by,” and so forth). 54 In reality, “sell by” and “use by” dates are not federally regulated and only serve as manufacturer suggestions for peak quality. Research on date labeling from the UK suggests that standardizing food date labeling and clarifying its meaning to the public could reduce household food waste by as much as 20 percent. 55
• Overbuying — Sales on unusual products and promotions that encourage impulse and bulk food purchases at retail stores often lead consumers to purchase items that do not fit into their regular meal plans and, therefore, spoil before they can be used. 56
• Poor Planning — Without meal plans and shopping lists, consumers often make inaccurate estimates of what and how many ingredients they will use during the week. Unplanned restaurant meals or food delivery can also lead to food at home going bad before it can be used. 57

Composting 101

The Biggest Reasons Food Gets Wasted

There are several macro-level drivers of the food waste problem in the US and globally. One is the difficulty of turning new consumer awareness into action. Public awareness about food waste in the US has improved significantly over the last few years. This is largely due to the efforts of organizations like the Ad Council and their Save the Food campaign, and coverage of the topic from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, National Geographic, BBC, Consumer Reports and the more than 3,300 articles written about the issue by major news and business outlets between 2011 and 2016 — a 205 percent increase over that period . 58

Additionally, in 2015, the USDA and the US Environmental Protection Agency adopted federal targets to cut food waste by 50 percent by 2030. 59 In 2016 a survey by the Ad Council of 6700 adults, 75 percent of respondents said that food waste was important or very important to them. However, limited data makes it difficult to assess whether this awareness has turned into action and whether or not people are actually wasting less food now than they were before. Homes remain a large source of food waste and more needs to be done to help educate the public and provide people with resources to help them implement food saving practices at home. 60

Another reason why food waste has become such a large problem is that it has not been effectively measured or studied. A comprehensive report on food losses in the US is needed to characterize and quantify the problem, identify opportunities and establish benchmarks against which progress can be measured. A study of this type by the European Commission in 2010 proved to be an important tool for establishing reduction goals in Europe and can serve as a model for US policymakers. 61

What Are the Environmental Impacts of Food Waste?

Only five percent of food is composted in the US and as a result, uneaten food is the single largest component of municipal solid waste. 62 In landfills, food gradually breaks down to form methane, a greenhouse gas that’s up to 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. 63  According to a report from the UK based organization WRAP, if food were removed from UK landfills, the greenhouse gas abatement would be equivalent to removing one-fifth of all the cars in the UK from the road. 64

Consumer food waste also has serious implications for energy usage. A study by the consulting group McKinsey found that, on average, household food losses are responsible for eight times the energy waste of farm-level food losses due to the energy used along the food supply chain and in preparation. 65

In addition, food waste is responsible for more than 25 percent of all the freshwater consumption in the US each year, and is among the leading causes of fresh water pollution. 66 Given all the resources demanded for food production, it is worth our while to make sure that the food we produce is not wasted.

What You Can Do

• Listen to our podcast episode, “The Big Problem of Food Waste.”
• Learn what you can do at home to help reduce food waste with our cooking with less waste ideas.
• Try planning meals and shopping in advance, and other tips for creating a zero-waste kitchen .
• Learn how to compost at home or see if your local government has a municipal composting program you can participate in. You can also check local organizations or farms to see if they do drop-off of food waste.

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• Groenewold, Stefan and Fonds, Mark. “Effects on benthic scavengers of discards and damaged benthos produced by the beam-trawl fishery in the southern North Sea.”  ICES Journal of Marine Science , 57(5): 1395-1406 (October 2000). Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1006/jmsc.2000.0914
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• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. “Discards in the world’s marine fisheries: An update.”  FAO,  2005. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from  https://www.fao.org/tempref/docrep/fao/008/y5936e/y5936e00.pdf
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• Buzby, Jean C. et al. “The Value of Retail- and Consumer-Level Fruit and Vegetable Losses in the United States.” The Journal of Consumer Affairs, Fall 2011, 492-515. Retrieved April  2015 from https://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-2202.pdf
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• Buzby, Jean C. et al. “The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.” Economic Research Service, USDA, February 2014. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/43833/43680_eib121.pdf  
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• Buzby, Jean C. et al. “The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.” Economic Research Service, USDA, February 2014. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/43833/43680_eib121.pdf
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Food Waste: An Introduction to the Issue and Questions that Remain

Food waste is a problem throughout the supply chain and across the globe that is increasingly capturing the attention of policymakers. Gustavsson et al. (2011) estimated that one-third of the food produced for consumption globally is lost or wasted. Within the U.S., Buzby et al. (2014) estimated that 31% of food available at the retail and consumer levels was wasted, which translates to a loss of $161 billion and 141 trillion calories per year (enough calories to feed ~ 193,000,000 people a daily diet of 2,000 calories for a year!) – not to mention the loss of the (scarce) resource inputs like land, water, and energy that went into food production.

How is food waste defined?

Discussions on food waste may also reference the term “food loss”; the terms sound synonymous, but there are distinctions between the two. An ERS report by Buzby et al. (2014) uses the following definitions for food loss and food waste:

• “ Food loss represents the amount of edible food, postharvest, that is available for human consumption but is not consumed for any reason. It includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage; loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and plate waste.”
• “ Food waste is a component of food loss and occurs when an edible item goes unconsumed, such as food discarded by retailers due to undesirable color or blemishes and plate waste discarded by consumers.”

Efforts to address food loss have been ongoing in developing countries, such as improvements in harvesting and storage technology, biological controls, etc. For more on research addressing food loss (postharvest loss), see Affognon et al. (2015) and Hodges et al. (2011). Conversely, efforts to address food waste have been more recent. The remainder of this article focuses on the more narrowly defined issue of food waste.

What is being done to reduce food waste?

The costs of food waste (economic and otherwise) have driven efforts in both the public and private sectors to reduce food waste along the supply chain. In the public sector, there are national and international initiatives ( U.S. Food Waste Challenge and SAVE FOOD Initiative , respectively) that set waste reduction goals and are designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and best practices for waste reduction across the supply chain. Further, there has been an increase in legislation related to food waste. In the U.S., legislation was introduced to clarify date labeling (“sell by”, “use by”, “best by”, etc.) on food products. In France, a new law was passed that bans supermarkets from throwing away unsold food; instead, they will be required to donate it (Chrisafis, 2016). Although less recent, the South Korean government implemented a volume-based food waste fee system in 2010 where households are forced to pay based on the weight of their waste.

In the private sector, we have also seen the formation of knowledge-sharing groups (e.g., Food Waste Reduction Alliance ). In addition, many technological solutions have been introduced that are designed to help track waste (e.g., LeanPath ), more optimally plan, shop and cook, donate leftovers, and so on (Hutcherson, 2013). Finally, there has been an increase in the selling of “ugly” fruits and vegetables (those fruits and vegetables that would not normally comply with the cosmetic standards required by retailers). The movement is credited to a grocery retailer in France (Intermarche) but has quickly expanded.  Major U.S. retailers such as Walmart and Whole Foods are offering “ugly” fruits and vegetables in their produce sections.  Both efforts are currently in pilot phase, but with the intention to expand (see Godoy, 2016 for more information).

Questions that remain about food waste

While many reports and food waste reduction initiatives in the public and private sectors identify households (consumers) as one of the biggest sources of food waste, there has been little research to understand how households actually make decisions on throwing out food. Further, this decision is rarely framed as an economic decision, with costs and benefits. There are most certainly cases where the decision to waste may be optimal, depending on one’s preferences, incentives, and resource constraints. For instance, an individual may prefer to throw out milk that is several days past the expiration date rather than run the risk of becoming ill. In discussing his household production model, Becker (1965) suggests that Americans should be more wasteful than people in developing countries because the opportunity cost of their time exceeds the market prices of food and other goods. Thus, it will be critical for future research to account for the different factors that play a role in the keep/waste decision to determine the tradeoffs consumers make in this process.

In addition to examining the waste decision in economic terms, it will be important to explore the heterogeneity across consumers when making these decisions. In other words, we may be able to identify that, in general, consumers will be more averse to wasting food when the cost of that food was high or when there is a replacement readily available; however, some types of people may be even more or less responsive to such factors than the average person. Research has already suggested that income may impact a household’s likelihood of wasting food (Becker, 1965; Daniel, 2016; Qi and Roe, 2016); however, other factors such as age, education, SNAP participation, etc. should also be examined. Understanding these differences may enable policymakers or advocacy groups to better tailor educational efforts to high-waste households.

A final question related to household food waste is: how do we motivate households to change their behavior? Though many ideas come to mind (e.g., education campaigns, waste taxes or waste reduction subsidies, changes in portion sizes or packaging), the answer to this question will likely depend on the household waste decision process, so it is imperative to understand this first before making policy recommendations.

Future articles on food waste will provide insight on some of my own research in this area, including preliminary results from an online survey where we attempt to learn more about the household waste decision process. Additionally, I will share information on my ongoing plate waste study in the University of Illinois dining halls.

References:

Affognon, Hippolyte, Christopher Mutungi, Pascal Sanginga, and Christian Borgemeister. 2015. “Unpacking Postharvest Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Meta-Analysis.” World Development , 66:49-68.

Becker, Gary S. 1965. “A Theory on the Allocation of Time.” The Economic Journal , 75(299):493-517.

Buzby, Jean C., Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman. 2014. “The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.” USDA Economic Research Service, Washington, DC, USA.

Chrisafis, Angelique. 2016. “French Law Forbids Food Waste by Supermarkets.” The Guardian , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Daniel, Caitlin. 2016. “Economic Constraints on Taste Formation and the True Cost of Healthy Eating.” Social Science & Medicine , 148:34-41.

Godoy, Maria. 2016. “Wal-Mart, America’s Largest Grocer, Is Now Selling Ugly Fruit and Vegetables.” NPR The Salt , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Gustavsson, Jenny, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert van Otterdijk, and Alexandre Meybeck. 2011. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention.” Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy.

Hodges, R. J., J. C. Buzby, and B. Bennett. 2011. “Postharvest Losses and Waste in Developed and Less Developed Countries: Opportunities to Improve Resource Use.” Journal of Agricultural Science , 149:37-45.

Hutcherson, Aaron. 2013. “Waste Not, Want Not: 6 Technologies to Reduce Food Waste.” Food+Tech Connect. Available at https://foodtechconnect.com/2013/10/02/waste-not-want-not-6-technologies-to-reduce-food-waste/ .

Qi, Danyi, and Brian E. Roe. 2016. “Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.” PLoS ONE , 11(7): e0159250.

food loss , food waste , SNAP

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Essay | There’s food at the house: Food waste and its impact on homelessness

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Ciara Thomas

Planet Forward Sr. Correspondent | Tuskegee University

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Have you ever thrown out a food product thinking it was expired, but in all actuality, it still tasted fine? I know I have. It is something that many people have done, without realizing that they are contributing to a world-wide problem: food waste.

Food waste is the unnecessary discarding of food that is still edible for human consumption and is a serious problem in many parts of the world, given that even the most developed countries have large populations of homeless people who are often forced to go without a meal. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 14 percent of food is lost between the stages of harvest and retail, while another 17% is wasted at the retail and consumer levels.

By unknowingly or carelessly tossing out a surplus of food, we continue to aid this problem while also throwing out a resource that somebody who is less fortunate would greatly appreciate. 

Everyone is family

Food waste may not be an entirely new issue, but it has certainly worsened in recent decades as fast food restaurants, and commercial food packaging have exponentially increased across the county. The answer to mitigating food waste may lie in the practices and ways of life that came before the fast food boom. 

My godmother, Philana Suggs, grew up on a farm in Alberta, Alabama in the Black Belt region. She described her young life as community centered being that the elders within her community were just one generation out of slavery. Her neighbors were all considered family and when someone had a surplus of a crop, they would give it to another. In this way, food would not be wasted and to preserve the food’s shelf life, they would either eat it or conserve it properly by deep freezing it.

This connects to the homelessness issue in the world because this city found a way for the food that they personally did not need, to not just be thrown away. This community style approach contributes to combating this global issue.

On her grandfather’s farm they grew vegetables like corn, mustard, collard, and turnip greens. They had animals like pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits, and horses. There were plentiful apples, berries, peaches, pecans, and plums and her uncle would even hunt animals like rabbits and deer as another source of meat. Her family had ponds that supported all types of life like catfish and trout, turtles, frogs, lizards, and ducks. There was also algae present, which she explained as important because it gave nutrients in the ponds.  

She also talked of how one animal would be a source of many different foods. For example, cows would be used for meat, but also for milk that would be used to simply drink or to make ice cream. Chicken would be used as a food source as well, but their eggs would also made other dishes. By doing this, they still utilized the grocery store’s resources, but they were not solely dependent on their products. 

Because of her background of growing up on a farm, food waste and homelessness is something my godmother is extremely passionate about. When asked about how she felt about this issue she said, “Forging ahead, our future is in the hands of the next generation. The knowledge from the past needs to be taught to them so that the mistakes we are currently making regarding wasting of food can be minimized.” With inflation on the rise, more people are living paycheck to paycheck, but this issue does not seem to be a main concern to many Americans. In today’s society, many are focused on our own individual lives instead of ways to support our broader community. In my godmother’s view, if we see someone struggling, we should help, instead of thinking that every man is for himself. 

For example, we should not be producing more food than we can eat, and we should especially not be throwing it away when someone else can put it to good use. If we do have a surplus in food, we should give it to an organization that knows how to properly distribute it to those in need. Restaurants should not require their employees to throw away the food that was not eaten during shift and should instead bring it to the nearest shelter.

Strategies for reducing food waste

I had the pleasure of interviewing Desmond Mortley, Ph.D. and Lucy Asare-Baah, Ph.D. of Tuskegee University. Asare-Baah is a professor at Tuskegee University who teaches in the Agribusiness program. Moretly is also a professor at Tuskegee who is involved in numerous activities, but his recent project is focusing on post-harvest food loss and waste. I sat with them both to grasp the concept of food waste and how one would go about decreasing this issue   

Asare-Baah explained that developing countries seem to focus on home economics more than its developed counterparts. Because of this, more people in developed countries are less eager to cook and may depend on restaurants to house their meals. This is an issue, because we allow these franchises to determine how little or how much food we receive and why when it comes down to an unfinished meal, we have no problem throwing it away. As stated before, restaurants do not know how to properly handle these unwanted dishes and will throw them out instead of giving them to someone who may need it. 

Mortely believes one of the issues that contributes to food waste lies on the labels found on food packaging. “We believe that as soon as a product hits an expiration date, we must immediately throw it away, even if the product does not appear expired,” said Mortely. 

This reminded me of when I was a child and saw that the more-than-halfway-gone milk in the fridge was “expired” and I poured it out in the sink. My mother asked me if I tried it, but I told her, “No,” because it was expired. She then explained that I must examine the product before immediately throwing it out, because it may not have even been bad. The more I talked to Asare-Baah and Mortley, the more I realized that I unknowingly contribute to food waste, and that other people may not realize it as well. 

When asked about suggestions for decreasing this issue in America, Mortley recommended more educational awareness. Everyone should take the time to do their own food research and learn about things like food shelf life. Asare-Baah said that buffets should be looked at more. Some buffets do try to help this issue by charging people who do not finish their plates but these rules often don’t go far enough. “People are too quick to throw away and waste a product because they believe that since they paid for it, it is not hurting anybody,” said Asare-Baah.

Both Mortley and Asare-Baah also advised that we learn how to cook. We need to learn how to be more adaptable in the kitchen. For example, Asare-Baah brought up bananas. “When they appear to be turning brown, instead of throwing them away, we should use them for another dish like banana pudding or banana bread that does not require ripe fruit”, said Asare-Baah.

Lastly, when I asked them both where they felt this issue was going and what the younger generation should know, Mortley stated that he requires his students to go to Tuskegee’s communities and volunteer to distribute food that would go bad on campus, into the community.

Similarly, Asare-Baah gives her students plenty of assignments on food waste, like polling people in the cafeteria on what this issue means to them. She believes that the solution is to involve the youth so that they can learn from the older generations. Engaging young people is important as they are the ones who will face the brunt of climate change’s impacts in the future.

As laid out in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2015 report on climate change and food security , climate change is expected to increasingly impact agricultural productivity in the future and, “The people who are projected to suffer the earlier and the worst impacts from climate change are the most vulnerable populations.”

By hearing stories of my godmother’s experiences on the farm and by learning from Tuskegee professors Desmond Mortley and Lucy Asare-Baah’s experiences in helping the decrease of food waste, I can say that I have learned to become more aware of how I handle my food. Instead of throwing away a dish that I did not like, I make sure to eat it all or if I am unsure about a dish, I will start off with a little helping instead of immediately filling up my plate. I think that if everyone becomes aware of how they personally contribute to food waste, then we can decrease this issue as well as ease the hunger of the homeless population. . 

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Food Waste in United States

How it works

In average, an American citizen will produce 4.4 pounds of trash in a single day. With the population of the United States being about 324 million, this equates daily to about 700,000 tons of trash produced. The biggest amount of wasted resources, though, is food waste. 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted across the globe in the span of one year (Loki). The effect of this kind of waste on the environment is extremely destructive and detrimental. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane wear down on the atmosphere, causing global warming.

If Americans do not take the necessary steps to reduce the unnecessary amount of trash and waste produced, the environment will continue to decline and cities and towns will become wastelands. Recycling and reducing waste has many benefits. Americans across the nation should recycle and cut down on the number of resources wasted with just a few simple measures.

The benefits of recycling have lasting positive effects on the environment and the well-being of planet Earth. Not only does it reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators, but it also conserves natural resources like timber, water, and minerals (Recycling Basics). Trash that is not transported correctly can make its way to oceans and rivers. This trash ruins natural habitats and is toxic to animals that accidentally consume of it. Chemicals transferred through plastic that is consumed by animals have detrimental effects on the food chain (Impacts of Mismanaged Trash). Through recycling, though, trash is collected and repurposed to give waste other purposes that do not include killing innocent animals.

Recycling provides jobs and support to American manufacturing, saves energy, and reduces pollution. According to Recycling Basics, over 757,000 jobs have been produced in recent times because of the recycling industry. Recovered materials are now being used to make newspaper, paper towels, soft drink containers, laundry detergent bottles, carpet, park benches, and asphalt used in making roads. If trash is sent to landfills, though, it often takes hundreds to thousands of years to decompose. LeBlanc said, Plastic waste is one of many types of wastes that take too long to decompose. Normally, plastic items can take up to 1000 years to decompose in landfills. But plastic bags we use in our everyday life take 10-1000 years to decompose, while plastic bottles can take 450 years or more. If glass is recycled, it can be melted down to make more glass. If it is sent to landfills, though, it takes millions of years to decompose or may not decompose at all (LeBlanc). With repurposing materials that have already been used, Americans can reduce the amount of paper, plastic, glass, and metal that is building up in landfills and oceans.

Besides trash destroying the planet, food waste also causes destruction to the environment. Because food is thrown in the trash and then taken to landfills, carbon dioxide is produced and causes severe global warming. Methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, is 84 times as harmful as carbon dioxide. With an estimated 222 million tons of food wasted per year in developed countries like America, one can just imagine how much this amount of food devastates the Earth (Loki). In less developed countries, food waste occurs due to mold and insect infestations because of poor storage. Contrastingly, food waste in America is caused by another factor. Most Americans waste food in their very own kitchens. According to 8 Facts to Know About Food Waste and Hunger, Roughly 30% to 40% of the food supply in the U.S. is wasted, which works out to more than 20 pounds of food per person per month. If Americans do not take responsibility for how food is wasted, the environment will continue to deteriorate and world hunger will remain a problem for decades to come.

Americans can utilize several doable methods to reduce the amount of trash that is mishandled and food wasted. Instead of buying individual packages of snacks and produce, choose to purchase in bulk. To divide out these large amounts of food, implement reusable containers. Plan with these ingredients to avoid letting good food spoil. In doing this, money is saved, trash build-up is lessened, and resources are used properly. Separate glass, aluminum, paper, and plastic to be placed in curbside bins, drop-off centers, or they can even be sent to deposit and refund organizations. Utilizing compost bins for food scraps along with yard waste can greatly decrease the amount of waste that is transferred. Instead of throwing away used printer paper, use it as scratch paper to jot down quick notes or lists (Loki). Applying these reasonable measures to one’s everyday life can greatly decrease the amount of waste that is produced over time.

Trash and food waste can build up and have harmful effects on the world and its resources. If Americans do not take responsibility for the amount of waste that is produced, hunger, pollution, and decomposition will continue to increase. The processes of recycling lead to economic growth and health of nature and humans. Reducing food waste can help to decrease hunger and global warming. With just a few simple measures taken by all Americans, the effects of trash and food waste can be slowed down.

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Age of Humans

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Garbage Can Teach Us a Lot About Food Waste

A novel and slightly gross study aims to fill in gaps in our understanding of Americans’ food waste

Whitney Pipkin

One man's trash is another man's data.

This month, in a first-of-its-kind study, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) will begin digging through the trash bins of residents and businesses in three American cities. Why? Because it turns out we don't actually know that much about food waste. We know that Americans waste about 36 million tons of food a year, but we don’t know the nitty-gritty details about individual behavior. How much of that “waste” is bones and peels that can’t be reused, and how much is food that could have been eaten? And how could not wasting some of that food help communities provide for the 48 million Americans who aren’t sure where they’ll get their next meal?

The new, slightly gross research will help us to understand the truth behind our communal food waste habits. NRDC researchers want to know not only how much food we throw away in a given week, but also how much of it could have been eaten if we had planned better or ignored an erroneous expiration date.

Starting in Nashville, Tennessee, the team will ask hundreds of volunteers to keep a weekly kitchen diary about what they throw away, and why. Then they’ll return to dig through their trash bins— Hazmat suits and all—to see if the diary matches the deeds.

The same work will begin in Denver, Colorado, a month later and in New York City in January, to get a sense of how these behaviors vary across the country. Altogether, researchers will survey about 1,000 residents and 100 businesses.

“This is the first time anyone’s trying to really track and get a better understanding of food waste in U.S. cities,” says Dana Gunders , senior scientist and food waste guru at NRDC, whose groundbreaking 2012 report found Americans waste 40 percent of their food—or more than 20 pounds per person each month.

The Rockefeller Foundation has given nearly $1 million to fund the project in hopes that it will give cities and citizens tools to chip away at their piece of the food waste pie. The Environmental Protection Agency set a goal last year for Americans to cut food waste in half by 2030—which in turn would cut water use by 25 percent, save consumers $165 billion a year, and reduce methane emissions from landfills by 20 percent in the process. But many cities are still grappling with how to reach that goal.

After funding the agricultural Green Revolution that helped feed a billion people, the foundation sees too much of those production gains being wasted today.  

“We really believe there’s a very strong common interest emerging, from the household level up to major corporations, where people want to know what to do,” says Zia Khan, Rockefeller’s vice president of initiatives and strategy. “We’re optimistic that, once we provide this information, lots of innovative people will figure out solutions at different scales.”

This isn't the first time scientists have gone dumpster diving to understand what we’re throwing away. Trash-digging projects of a similar scale have taken place in London and Vancouver, but in those studies, the researchers weren't able to match up bins with food waste journals. Besides, “we can’t assume that we have the same practices as British citizens,” says Gunders.

Cities have also hired “solid waste experts” from companies like Kansas-based Engineering Solutions & Design to  sift through their landfills  and tell them what could easily be diverted, and scientists at NRDC have done similar work. But those studies typically break the waste into several categories, one of which is “food.”

“What we can’t say from that is: What kind of food was it? Was it edible, or just bones and peels? Why did it happen? And it doesn’t give you any information on how to address it,” Gunders says. 

"The geek in me is actually strangely jealous that I’m not getting to be elbow deep in food waste in Nashville." 

Gunders hopes this study will fill in some of those gaps. We have vague notions about the food waste chain: Imperfect produce is left to rot in farm fields or discarded at the grocery store. Food that was once perfectly good goes bad in our refrigerators or is left uneaten on a restaurant plate. But we don’t know how much of that could have been eaten, and how much was inevitable scraps and bits from processing.

When Gunders looks at residents’ trash surveys and through their bins in the coming months, she’ll be interested both in what’s just “past due” (and technically still fine to eat), and what should have been eaten days earlier before it spoiled. One reason people throw away food is that they might not understand that best-by dates on packages are suggestions, a problem  legislation introduced to Congress  this year aims to address. The other represents a series of more complicated problems: our ability to match cooking aspirations with reality and our propensity to over-order among them.

One hypothesis Gunders is confident making: people tend to underestimate how much food they’re really throwing away. The average American household wastes about $2,000 worth of food each year, according to Jonathan Bloom’s book,  American Wasteland . But a  survey conducted last year  by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future found that 75 percent of Americans still think they waste less than the average American.

“It’s like my favorite statistic,” says Gunders. “Everything points to the fact that people don’t know how much they’re wasting and tend to think they’re doing great.”

When researchers dug through trash bins in London and Vancouver, they found they regularly contained more food waste than the average diary had indicated. Those researchers were not able to match specific bins to residents who completed the survey, working off of averages instead. Gunders said NRDC’s work in Nashville will compare diaries and bins from the same homes, though she’s not yet sure whether that will be possible in Denver and New York City.

On the commercial side, the project will work with several types of businesses, from schools and sports arenas to restaurants and grocery stores, to estimate the food each sector tends to waste. Talking to businesses will help them discern whether those sandwiches in the dumpster were uneaten halves from customers, which they can’t recover, or shrink-wrapped extras from the refrigerator, which could have been donated to a food bank.

Each city will get a report detailing how much food wasted by businesses could instead be recovered to feed the hungry. And all this data will be made available for other cities interested in trimming their trash bills or meeting their communities’ needs with food that might have been tossed.  

“What we will have at the end is a decent estimate of residential waste, why and what, and a very preliminary look at commercial waste,” Gunders says. “I expect it’s a first step that people will build off of for years.”

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Whitney Pipkin | | READ MORE

Whitney Pipkin is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post , NationalGeographic.com and NPR, among others.

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Food Waste Research

On this page:

Why research food waste?

• From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste
• From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management Pathways

Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste

Emerging issues in food waste management, food waste prevention and reduction, food waste processing, food waste management.

Wasted food is a major global environmental, social, and economic challenge. According to scientific research, approximately one-third of the food produced in the U.S. is never eaten. When food is produced but unnecessarily wasted, all the resources used to grow the food – water, energy, fertilizers – and the resources used to transport it from farms to our tables, are wasted as well. Most of the resource inputs and environmental impacts of food waste occur during production, processing, and delivery to our kitchens. When food is deposited in a landfill and decomposes, the byproducts of that decomposition process are methane and carbon dioxide. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat and contributes to climate change. EPA estimated that in the United States in 2018, more food was sent to landfills than any other single material in our everyday trash ( EPA Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures ).

• EPA Sustainable Management of Food
• Composting Resources
• Funding Opportunities and EPA Programs Related to the Food System
• EPA Anaerobic Digestion
• U.S. 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal

In 2015, EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) established a national goal to halve food loss and waste by 2030. Through the sustainable management of food, we can help businesses and consumers save money, provide a bridge in our communities for those who do not have enough to eat, prevent pollution, and conserve resources. Research and development of new science-based solutions are essential to meeting these goals. Below are examples of EPA research to reduce food waste and improve its management.

From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste (Part 1)

EPA prepared the report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste, to inform domestic policymakers, researchers, and the public about the environmental footprint of food loss and waste in the U.S. and the environmental benefits that can be achieved by reducing U.S. food loss and waste. It focuses primarily on five inputs to the U.S. cradle-to-consumer food supply chain -- agricultural land use, water use, application of pesticides and fertilizers, and energy use -- plus one environmental impact -- green house gas emissions.

Read the report:  From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste .

From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management Pathways (Part 2)

EPA prepared the report, From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Pathways, to investigate the environmental impacts and contributions to a circular economy of eleven common pathways to manage wasted food – from source reduction to composting to landfill.   The report presents a new ranking of the wasted food pathways, from most to least environmentally preferable. Wasted food is generated all along the food supply chain, and thus the audience for this report includes a broad range of stakeholders from farms to food businesses to households to waste managers, as well as policymakers seeking advice on how to reduce the environmental impacts of wasted food.  This report completes the analysis that began in the Part 1 report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste. Together, these two reports provide a better understanding of the net environmental footprint of U.S. food waste.

Read the report: From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management Pathways

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that affects the earth’s temperature and climate system. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the United States. Methane emitted from landfills results from the decaying of organic waste over time under anaerobic (i.e., without oxygen) conditions. To understand the impact of landfilled food waste, a portion of organic waste, has on these emissions, EPA developed the report, Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste. The analysis estimates the amount of methane emissions released into the atmosphere from decaying food waste in landfills from 1990 to 2020. This is the first published modeled estimates of annual methane emissions from landfilled food waste. Results of the analysis can inform actions to reduce the amount of wasted food being disposed of in landfills and consequently, the methane emitted.

Read the report: Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste

EPA encourages the recycling of food waste for several reasons. Recycling food waste can reduce methane emissions from landfills, and it can recover valuable nutrients and energy from food waste. However, there are concerns about the levels of plastic and persistent chemical contaminants, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in food waste streams. Food waste streams consist of food and other items (such as compostable food packaging) that get collected – intentionally and unintentionally – for composting or anaerobic digestion.

EPA recently developed two reports summarizing published science about contamination in food waste streams, the effects of this contamination on composting and anaerobic digestion (two common ways to recycle food waste), and potential risks to human health and the environment of applying compost or digestate (the product from anaerobic digestion) made from food waste streams to land as soil amendments. 

Another EPA report summarized the available data on food waste technologies, such as grinders and biodigesters, used by businesses and institutions to pre-process food waste on-site. The report evaluates whether these technologies encourage food waste recycling or reduce the environmental impact of food waste. These reports are available at the links below.

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Persistent Chemical Contaminants

The purpose of this issue paper is to inform policymakers, producers of food waste compost, and potential buyers of compost and digestate about the contribution of food waste streams to persistent chemical contamination in compost and digestate, relative to other common feedstocks, and the potential health and environmental risks posed by land applying compost and digestate made from food waste.

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Persistent Chemical Contaminants (pdf) (3.2 MB, August 18, 2021, EPA/600/R-21/115)

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Plastic Contamination

The purpose of this issue paper is to inform federal, state, and local policymakers of the latest science related to plastic contamination in food waste streams and its impacts on food waste recycling, the environment, and human health, and to prioritize research needs in this area.

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Plastic Contamination (pdf) (2.7 MB, August 18, 2021, EPA/600/R-21/116)

Overview: Emerging Issue in Food Waste Persistent Chemical and Plastic Contamination (pdf) (317.1 KB, August 18, 2021)

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Commercial Pre-Processing Technologies

The purpose of this issue paper is to assess the environmental value of food waste pre-processing technologies (e.g., biodigesters, grinders, and pulpers) used on-site by businesses and institutions that generate food waste.

Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management: Commercial Pre-Processing Technologies (pdf) (3.5 MB, September 13, 2021, 600-R-21-114)

Overview: Commercial Pre-Processing Technologies (pdf) (252.3 KB, September 13, 2021)

Research Highlights

U.s. epa excess food opportunities map.

This map displays the locations of about 950,000 potential industrial, commercial and institutional excess food generators, about 6,500 potential excess food recipient locations, and about 275 communities with residential source separated organics programs. The map enables users to learn about potential sources of excess food in their region and potential non-landfill recipients, such as food banks as well as composting and anaerobic digestion facilities. As part of EPA’s Office of Research and Development’s (ORD) Regional Sustainable Environmental Science (RESES) program, EPA researchers from Region 9, ORD, and the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) collaborated to develop the map. OLEM currently manages and updates the map. Version 3.0 was released in August 2023.  Read a story about the map here .

​Food Waste Reduction in Military Kitchens, A Tracking Technology Demonstration at Fort Jackson

EPA researchers, in partnership with the U.S. Army as part of the Net Zero initiative, conducted a demonstration with the Leanpath food waste characterization technology to assess how overproduction and food preparation practices contribute to food waste in U.S. Army-operated dining facilities. As a result of the project, the Army was better able to understands the drivers of food waste in Army kitchens (primarily over-production), and over five tons of unused food identified in the project was donated to local food banks. This project was part of EPA ORD’s Net Zero Partnerships .

Organic Waste Diversion Feasibility Study in Columbia, South Carolina

EPA scientists identified and analyzed major food waste generators and opportunities to divert food waste from landfills. The study helped inform local and state efforts.

Evaluating Processed Food Waste from Kitchen Digester Use and the Downstream Impacts/Benefits

Growing demand for handling food waste in environmentally friendly ways have led to aggressive marketing for and purchasing of a variety of on-site food waste processing systems. EPA researchers are studying pre-processing technologies in use in commercial kitchens in New York City. The results of this research will assess and evaluate food waste pre-processing systems in real-world settings with respect to factors such as performance, capital costs, existing infrastructure, quantity and quality of waste and water streams, and its overall potential to enable organic waste reduction and diversion.

Evaluating De-packaging Technologies

EPA researchers will test the performance of food de-packaging equipment available on the market. Contamination from packaging (including film plastics) in food waste feedstock may complicate composting and anaerobic digestion operations and decrease the market desirability and safety of land application of finished compost and digestate. EPA researchers are characterizing plastics in food waste streams after the use of de-packaging technologies to determine if their use increases plastic contamination in compost and digestate. 

Effect of Nutrient Removal and Resource Recovery on Life Cycle Cost and Environmental Impacts of a Small-Scale Water Resource Recovery Facility

Scientists conducted a scenario analysis of upgrading a small community water resource recovery facility to include anaerobic digestion with co-digestion of high strength organic waste. Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment were used to evaluate the net impact of the potential conversion.  The upgraded water resource recovery facility reduced eutrophication impacts by 40 percent compared to the legacy system. 

Feasibility Study of Food Waste Co-Digestion at U.S. Army Installations

EPA researchers worked with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to assess the feasibility of rebuilding the sewage treatment system at Fort Huachuca, Arizona to include anaerobic digestion to accept food waste and other organics. The research team concluded that co-digestion of food and biosolids would be a win-win scenario for Fort Huachuca because it would help eliminate the largest part of the waste stream (food), reduce biosolids disposal costs, and generate power for operating the installation’s wastewater treatment plant.

Life Cycle Assessment and Cost Analysis of Water and Wastewater Treatment Options for Sustainability: Upgrade of Bath, New York Wastewater Treatment Plant

EPA scientists investigated the potential trade-offs within the context of a Southwestern New York community of upgrading a one million gallon per day conventional activated sludge system to incorporate advanced biological treatment and anaerobic digestion, including co-digesting an increased quantity of the community’s high strength organic waste. The life cycle assessment explored methods to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant, while simultaneously transforming it to recover useful energy for heat and electricity, nutrients for compost, and water for irrigation. The research provides guidance for small communities considering upgrades and demonstrates the positive potential of resource recovery strategies to increase effluent quality while reducing other environmental impacts.

Food Waste to Energy: How Six Water Resource Recovery Facilities are Boosting Biogas Production and the Bottom Line

EPA researchers evaluated the co-digestion practices, performance, and the experiences of six water resource recovery facilities accepting food waste. The report describes the types of food waste co-digested and the strategies--specifically, the tools, timing, and partnerships--employed to manage the material. Additionally, the report describes how the facilities manage wastewater solids, providing information about power production, biosolids use, and program costs.

Impact of Food Waste Diversion on Gas and Leachate from Simulated Landfills

EPA researchers evaluated the quality and quantity of liquid and gas emissions from lab-scale landfills (lysimeters) with varying amounts of food waste. In the simulations, those with the least amount of food waste began generating methane the fastest, contradictory to how current models predict landfill methane generation. This finding showed that food waste contributes volatile fatty acids to municipal solid waste, which in turn lowers pH and delays microbial methanogen dominance.

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Home | Food | Food Waste

Food Waste Essays

15 essay samples on this topic, essay examples, essay topics, issues of food waste argumentative essay.

Social Issues

Issue of Food Wastage

How to solve the food waste problem.

Problem Solving

Ways of Reducing Food Waste

Environment

Environmental Issues

Global Problem of Food Waste

Drivers of food waste, importance of reducing the food waste, importance of food waste management, general outlook on food waste and its drivers, food waste reduction.

Check a list of useful topics on Food Waste selected by experts

Food Waste Has Developed Over the Whole Existence of Humans

Food Waste in America

Food waste in hong kong

Food Waste in the U.K.

Food Waste Is a Massive Problem — Here’s Why

Food waste is a problem that has been around for many years

Food Waste Is an Interesting Issue That Plays a Major Role in the Food Systems

Food Waste Reduction in the Factory

Global Food Waste and its Environmental Impact

Problem of Food Waste and Food Distribution

Reducing Food Waste by 20% in a Year

Social Impact of Food Waste

Tonnes of Food Waste Are Produced in Hong Kong Everyday

What is the food waste problem in Hong Kong among

What It Takes to Reduce Food Waste

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Food is the reason behind human existence, and no organism could flourish without this basic need. The world is now encountering the issue related to wastage of food, causing huge negative effects to all the people. There are many research and findings on this topic that can help us understand the issue, and we have gathered all such data. So, if you want to write some food waste essay, you will be surprised to see the best data available in one place. We have not relied on a single dimension of the topic, but we have made our efforts to cover various dimensions, and our samples will help you write the best essay on food waste. We have made reading these essays quite simple, and you can easily find all the essays; and by reading all the content, you can easily write an essay on food waste and its impact, which can be used for study and business purposes.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Food Waste — Challenges and Opportunities in Reducing Food Waste (2023-2024)

Challenges and Opportunities in Reducing Food Waste (2023-2024)

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Introduction, the challenges of reducing food waste, the opportunities of reducing food waste, the importance of food waste reduction in a sustainable food system.

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Related Essays on Food Waste

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As the global population swells and the demand for food intensifies, a paradoxical reality emerges: a staggering amount of food, enough to nourish millions, is discarded along the supply chain and in our homes. This stark [...]

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• Published: 23 August 2024

Food loss and waste

Nature Food volume  5 ,  page 639 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Not only does the problem persist, but it is also getting worse. Nature Food’s Collection ‘Loss and waste in food systems’ is a contribution to the debate on drivers, impacts and solutions.

Food loss occurs along the food supply chain up to the sales level, whereas food waste refers to what is thrown away by retailers and consumers. Food loss and waste (FLW), the sum of the two, is central to the food systems crisis we are living through today — depleting natural resources, contributing to climate change and hindering food security. Curbing FLW can not only ameliorate these issues, but also avoid the additional environmental burden associated with future food production.

In a world where 29% of the global population is moderately or severely food insecure 1 , the fact that FLW amounts to about one third (or 1.3 billion tonnes) of the total food produced is hard to swallow. In 2022, 13% of all food produced was lost, and another 19% of food available to consumers was wasted at the retail, food service and household levels. The highest FLW shares are seen in the case of fruits and vegetables (45%), followed by fish and seafood (35%), cereals (30%), dairy products (20%), and meat and poultry (20%) 2 .

Having passed the midpoint of the implementation of the Agenda 2030 , the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 12, target 12.3 — dedicated to halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses — is still looking elusive. Food loss is greater in developing countries, where it tends to occur at the early stages of the food supply chain due to limitations in harvesting, storage and transport. When it comes to food waste, an increased convergence in the average per capita household food waste has been observed over past years (with high-income, upper–middle-income and lower–middle-income countries differing in observed average levels of household food waste by just 7 kg capita –1 year –1 ) 3 .

What prevents us from solving FLW? It all starts with data availability. Unsurprisingly, on-farm data for food loss are particularly hard to collect not only because of their diffuse nature but also because they involve poor countries with sparse reporting and monitoring tools. Different definitions of ‘edible’ and ‘non-edible’ crops, or of what can be redirected to non-food chains, represent an additional challenge. Something similar happens with food waste; according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the custodian of the Food Waste Index, very few countries have estimates suitable for tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030, which poses a barrier to understanding the problem and assessing the effectiveness of interventions. More investment is needed in the development of technologies that increase resource-use efficiency and avoid FLW; creative solutions to mitigate the impact of unavoidable loss and waste, from food upcycling and processing into new materials to anti-food-waste apps, could also foster a paradigm shift. Crucially, the way the food market operates renders food waste profitable, whereas the fact that food prices do not reflect social and environmental costs rewards inefficiency and reinforces inequalities.

The above won’t get us far unless producers, consumers, business and governments act together. Around 60% of the world’s food waste in 2022 came from households, followed by the food service sector and the retail sector. Solutions must be addressed at both the individual and systemic levels, including international collaboration among countries and across supply chains. Important regional differences exist and must be considered when designing solutions, alongside disparities across income groups and urban–rural areas within the same country.

This month, Nature Food is launching a Collection relevant to this debate. Entitled ‘Loss and waste in food systems’, it brings together primary research and commentary pieces examining the driving factors and impacts of food loss and waste at both regional and global levels, while exploring solutions for more sustainable food systems. The Collection will be updated as new publications come out. We hope you will feel inspired to contribute to it!

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to End Hunger, Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in All its Forms (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO, 2024); https://go.nature.com/3ypZwxC

Food Waste Index Report 2024. Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste (UNEP, 2024); https://go.nature.com/4dD9dHG

UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024 Key Messages (UNEP, 2024); https://go.nature.com/3SJx1Sm

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Food loss and waste. Nat Food 5 , 639 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01041-7

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Most food waste happens at home – new research reveals the best ways to reduce it

Associate Professor in Behavioural Decision Making, University of Leeds

Disclosure statement

Gulbanu Kaptan was awarded research funding (with project partners WRAP and Zero Waste Scotland) from the UKRI ESRC for a project on reducing household food waste (2020-2022). She is a Co-investigator on a UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund project on ensuring food system resilience. Between 2021 and 2023, she worked as an expert member of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum.

University of Leeds provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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The EU and UK pledged to reduce food waste, in line with the UN’s goal to halve global food waste by 2030. With most (approximately 53%) of total food waste in European countries occurring in homes, this stage of the food chain presents the most significant challenge due to the need for widespread behaviour change.

Although consumer food waste is a complex issue influenced by factors such as people’s knowledge, habits, social norms and food supply chain efficiency, reducing household food waste is achievable.

Reduction of food waste can have multiple benefits, including conserving limited natural resources such as water, improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. My new research shows that reduction is possible with the right tools for behaviour change and consumer willingness to prevent food waste.

I was in a team of 15 researchers and practitioners with expertise in consumer food waste prevention, working with the European Consumer Food Waste Forum . We evaluated 78 interventions across the EU, UK and beyond .

A combination of different approaches is needed to significantly reduce consumer food waste – there’s no single thing that could change the way everyone deals with their food waste. Customised interventions to specific groups of consumers works best, especially when people are willing, engaged and actively involved in the process.

We identified which of the solutions resulted in the biggest reductions in consumer food waste and made recommendations to tackle the problem.

Here are five steps that can help reduce food waste in your household:

1. Find out the facts

Start by educating yourself and your family to raise your awareness and motivate you to make changes to your daily routine. Look online at environmental charity Wrap ( the Waste and Resources Action Programme ) for useful resources about the problem of food waste and its negative effects on our present and future.

Share this knowledge and experience with your family, including your children. Learn about the ways to prevent food waste at home, for example, how to store food to eat healthily with less waste and how to reuse leftovers.

2. Make small changes

Make simple adjustments to your routine at home. Try going shopping with a list to avoid buying food you don’t need and might not use, plan your meals to buy just the right amount of ingredients, check date labels on packaging to prioritise eating items that are closer to expiring and reuse leftovers to make sure every bit of edible food is consumed.

3. Get confident in the kitchen

Cook and eat at home more often to eat healthily and reduce food waste .

Sign up to a cooking class to develop your skills in a fun way. Learning to prepare food more efficiently or getting creative with leftovers will help you make the most of your ingredients and prevent waste.

4. Use visual reminders

Employ simple tools and prompts to remind you about sustainable switches that can be incorporated into daily life. Put a sticker on foods that are nearing expiration dates to use them first or take pictures of wasted food to put it on your fridge as a visual reminder of the negative impact of waste.

5. Mix it up

Combine various approaches to prevent food waste in a way that works best for you and keeps you on track. Follow online tips and advice from organisations such as Zero Waste Scotland and Hubbub , use food waste apps such as Kitche, Too Good To Go or Olio to share excess ingredients with neighbours.

You can also get involved with community programmes in your local area such as FareShare Yorkshire and Surplus2Purpose , an initiative that redistributes unwanted food stock to those who need it most.

By adopting some or all of these practices and encouraging others to do the same, you can contribute to a larger movement to reduce food waste and help promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits.

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It Eats Plastic. You Eat It.

Scientists have created a nutritious powder from plastic-consuming microbes.

This article was originally published by Undark Magazine .

In 2019, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense released a call for research projects to help the military deal with the copious amount of plastic waste generated when troops are sent to work in remote locations or disaster zones. The agency wanted a system that could convert food wrappers and water bottles, among other things, into usable products, such as fuel and rations. The system needed to be small enough to fit in a Humvee and capable of running on little energy. It also needed to harness the power of plastic-eating microbes.

“When we started this project four years ago, the ideas were there. And in theory, it made sense,” says Stephen Techtmann, a microbiologist at Michigan Technological University, who leads one of the research groups receiving funding. Nevertheless, in the beginning, the effort “felt a lot more science fiction than really something that would work.”

That uncertainty was key. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, supports high-risk, high-reward projects. This means there’s a good chance that any individual effort will end in failure. But when a project does succeed, it has the potential to be a true scientific breakthrough. “Our goal is to go from disbelief, like, ‘You’re kidding me. You want to do what?’ to ‘You know, that might be actually feasible,’” says Leonard Tender, a program manager at DARPA who oversees the plastic-waste projects.

The problems with plastic production and disposal are well known. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the world creates more than 440 million tons of plastic a year. Much of it ends up in landfills or in the ocean, where microplastics , plastic pellets , and plastic bags pose a threat to wildlife. Many governments and experts agree that solving the problem will require reducing production, and some countries and U.S. states have additionally introduced policies to encourage recycling.

Read: The world has one big chance to fix plastics

For years, scientists have also been experimenting with various species of plastic-eating bacteria . But DARPA is taking a slightly different approach in seeking a compact and mobile solution that uses plastic to create something else entirely: food for humans.

The goal, Techtmann hastens to add, is not to feed people plastic. Rather, the hope is that the plastic-devouring microbes in the system will themselves prove fit for human consumption. Techtmann believes that although most of the project will be ready in a year or two, this food step could take longer. His team is currently doing toxicity testing, and then they will submit the results to the Food and Drug Administration for review. Even if all that goes smoothly, an additional challenge awaits. There’s an ick factor, Techtmann says, “that I think would have to be overcome.”

The military isn’t the only entity working to turn microbes into nutrition. From Korea to Finland, a small number of researchers, as well as some companies, are exploring whether microorganisms might one day help feed the world’s growing population.

Read: Can planet Earth feed 10 billion people?

According to Tender, DARPA’s call for proposals was aimed at solving two problems at once. First, the agency hoped to reduce what he calls supply-chain vulnerability: During war, the military needs to transport supplies to troops in remote locations, which creates a safety risk for people in the vehicle. Additionally, there was motivation to stop using hazardous burn pits to deal with plastic waste. “Getting those waste products off of those sites responsibly is a huge lift,” Tender says.

The Michigan Tech system begins with a mechanical shredder, which reduces the plastic to small shards that then move into a reactor, where they soak in ammonium hydroxide under high heat. Some plastics, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used to make disposable water bottles, break down at this point. Other plastics used in military-food packaging—namely polyethylene and polypropylene—are passed along to another reactor, where they are subject to much higher heat and an absence of oxygen.

Under these conditions, the polyethylene and polypropylene are converted into compounds that can be upcycled into fuels and lubricants. David Shonnard, a chemical engineer at Michigan Tech who oversaw this component of the project, has developed a start-up company called Resurgent Innovation to commercialize some of the technology. (Other members of the research team, Shonnard says, are pursuing additional patents related to other parts of the system.)

After the PET has broken down in the ammonium hydroxide, the liquid is moved to another reactor, where it is consumed by microbes. Techtmann initially thought he would need to go to a highly contaminated environment to find bacteria capable of breaking down the deconstructed plastic. But as it turned out, bacteria from compost piles worked really well. This may be because components of the deconstructed plastic seem to look like components of decomposing plant material, he says. So the bacteria that would otherwise eat plants can perhaps instead draw their energy from the plastic.

After the bacteria consume the plastic, the microbes are then dried into a powder that smells a bit like nutritional yeast and has a balance of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, Techtmann says.

Research into edible microorganisms dates back at least 60 years, but the body of evidence is decidedly small. (One review estimated that since 1961, an average of seven papers have been published each year.) Still, researchers in the field say there are good reasons for countries to consider microbes as a food source. Among other things, they are rich in protein, Sang Yup Lee, a bioengineer and the senior vice president for research at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, wrote in an email to Undark . Lee and others have noted that cultivating microbes requires less land and water than conventional agriculture. Therefore, they might prove to be a more sustainable source of nutrition, particularly as the human population grows.

Read: The sad future of grocery shopping

Lee reviewed a paper describing the microbial portion of the Michigan Tech project, and said that the group’s plans are feasible. But he pointed out a significant challenge: At the moment, only certain microorganisms are considered safe to eat, namely “those we have been eating through fermented food and beverages, such as lactic acid bacteria, bacillus, some yeasts.” But these don’t degrade plastics.

Before using the plastic-eating microbes as food for humans, the research team will submit evidence to regulators indicating that the substance is safe. Joshua Pearce, an electrical engineer at Western University in Ontario, performed the initial toxicology screening, breaking the microbes down into smaller pieces, which they compared against known toxins.

“We’re pretty sure there’s nothing bad in there,” Pearce says. He added that the microbes have also been fed to C. elegans roundworms without apparent ill effects, and the team is looking at how rats do when they consume the microbes over the longer term. If the rats respond well, then the next step would be to submit data to the FDA for review.

At least a handful of companies are in various stages of commercializing new varieties of edible microbes. A Finnish start-up, Solar Foods , for example, has taken a bacterium found in nature and created a powdery product with a mustard-brown hue that has been approved for use in Singapore. In an email to Undark , Chief Experience Officer Laura Sinisalo said that the company has applied for approval in the European Union and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States, where it hopes to enter the market by the end of this year.

Even if the plastic-eating microbes turn out to be safe for human consumption, Techtmann says, the public might still balk at the prospect of eating something nourished on plastic waste. For this reason, he says, this particular group of microbes might prove most useful on remote military bases or during disaster relief, where it could be consumed short-term, to help people survive.

“I think there’s a bit less of a concern about the ick factor,” Techtmann says, “if it’s really just, ‘This is going to keep me alive for another day or two.’”

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