The United States is far from its goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030, according to a new analysis from the University of California, Davis.
In September 2015, the United States set an ambitious goal to reduce food loss and waste by 50%. The idea was to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills. greenhouse gas As it decomposes, it becomes a major factor contributing to climate change.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis looked at state policies across the country to estimate how much each state could potentially reduce food waste in 2022. They found that without further efforts at the federal level, no state is on track to achieve national waste reductions. goal.
Even after taking into account mitigation measures, the U.S. still generates about 328 pounds of food waste per person per year, researchers calculated. This is also the amount of food waste generated per person in 2016, shortly after the EPA and USDA were established. Announcing goals for waste reduction.
Sarah Kakadelis, lead author of the study, said these numbers show that even the best strategies for eliminating waste are not enough to reach the goal. Published in Nature magazine this month.
To assess how the U.S. is working to meet its food waste reduction goals, Kakadelis and her team used publicly available data (from the nonprofit organization ReFED). Monitoring food waste in the United States) and estimates based on the current policy situation.
Lori Leonard, dean of Cornell University’s School of Global Development, said the study’s findings are “not surprising” given the lack of federal policy governing food waste. “People are trying to do what they can at the state and local level,” she said. “But we really need national leadership on this issue.”
Kakadelis suggests that moving forward also requires changing the way consumers think about certain waste management strategies, such as composting.
Composting turns organic materials, such as food scraps, into a nutrient-rich mixture that can be used as fertilizer for new plants and crops. Although it can be considered a form of food “recycling,” the final product is technically not edible. This important detail means that despite the potential environmental benefits, consumers should view composting as a form of food waste, Kakadelis says.
“We really think about the best use of food: eating it,” she said.
Although touted as a great alternative to throwing moldy bananas in the trash, composting is actually classified as a type of food waste by the United Nations and European Union. In 2021, EPA updated its definition of food waste to include composting and anaerobic digestion. Both can turn inputs such as leftover food into fertilizer or biogas.
In updating its guidance, EPA published a hierarchy of food waste. This shows that the best way to reduce food waste is to prevent it. This includes labeling food with accurate dates. This eliminates confusion for consumers when something they purchase goes bad or is no longer safe to eat. It is also desirable to find other uses for unsold or uneaten food. For example, donating it to a food bank or incorporating it into animal feed that can be used to raise livestock (assuming that livestock also ends up being fed to humans).
Composting will always play a role in diverting food waste from landfills. This is because while these businesses can accept spoiled or spoiled food, food banks, for example, cannot. “It’s not an either/or. They have to walk hand in hand,” Kakadelis said. “But too often we skip all the other steps and go straight to recycling.”
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Leonard agrees, pointing out the high costs of keeping this country’s vast and complex food system running smoothly, from the farms where crops are harvested to the trucks and cold storage warehouses that handle packaged goods. He pointed out that it would take. “A tremendous amount of energy goes into producing that food,” she said. “We’re not doing it to compost. You know, we’re doing it to feed people.”
Of course, composting serves multiple purposes and has environmental benefits beyond reducing food loss and waste. For example, replenish the soil. But Leonard says if more efforts were done on the prevention side, such as making sure farms didn’t overproduce food, the soil wouldn’t be as degraded in the first place and wouldn’t need as much remediation. Point out that it is deaf.
Both Leonard and Kakadelis stress that no option should be eliminated to avoid sending food to landfills. Leonard previously worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Protection, where he investigated organic bans in other states.
“I asked them if they were encouraging businesses and households to move up the EPA tier and find other, better uses for food residue. And they said, ‘No, no.’ Ta. What we’re really trying to do is give people the ability to do anything in the hierarchy. ”That includes composting.
Until we have more options for both pre-consumer and post-consumer food waste, composting may be the best and most accessible option for many people. “That’s the easiest thing to do,” Leonard said. “And until we have better protocols in place, this is probably the safest way to do it.”
