The US has committed to cutting food waste in half – We’re not close

In September 2015, the United States set an ambitious goal of reducing its food loss and waste by 50 percent. The idea was to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills, where it is emitted greenhouse gases as it decomposes, a major contributing factor to climate change.

UC Davis researchers looked at state policies across the country and estimated how much food waste each state was likely to reduce by 2022. They found that, without more work being done at the federal level, no state is on track to achieve the reduction of national waste. purpose

The researchers calculated that even when reduction measures are taken into account, the United States still generates about 328 pounds of food waste per person per year — which is also how much waste was generated per person in 2016, just after the EPA and the United States Department of Agriculture. announced the goal of cutting waste.

These figures indicate that even our best strategies to eliminate waste are not enough to meet our goals, said Sarah Kakadellis, lead author of the study. published in Nature this month.

To assess how the United States is doing in meeting its food waste reduction goals, Kakadellis and his team used two publicly available data (from ReFED, a non-profit organization that monitors food waste in the United States) and estimates based on the current political landscape.

The results of the study “were not surprising” given the absence of federal policy governing food waste, said Lori Leonard, chair of the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. “People are trying to do what they can at the state and municipal level,” he said. “But we really need national leadership on this issue.”

Kakadellis suggests that a path forward also requires changing the way consumers think about certain waste management strategies – such as composting.

Compost turns organic matter, such as food waste, into a nutrient-rich mixture that can be used to fertilize new plants and crops. It can be considered a form of “recycling” of food, even if its final product technically cannot be eaten. This important detail means that consumers have to learn to see compost, despite its potential environmental benefits, as a form of food waste, says Kakadellis.

“It’s really thinking about the best use of food, which is to eat,” he said.

Although it has been promoted as a great alternative to tossing your moldy bananas in the trash, composting is actually classified as a form of food waste by the United Nations and the European Union. In 2021, the EPA updated its definition of food waste to include composting and anaerobic digestion—both of which can take inputs like uneaten food and turn them into fertilizer or biogas, respectively.

In updating its guidance, the EPA has published a food waste hierarchy – showing that the best way to reduce food waste is to prevent it. This includes things like adding accurate date labels to food products, so consumers aren’t confused when something they bought has gone bad or is no longer safe to eat. It is also preferable to find another use for unsold or uneaten food – such as donating it to food banks or incorporating it into animal feed, where it can be used to raise livestock (assuming that the livestock will eventually feed humans as well).

Composting will always have a role to play in diverting food waste from landfills – because these operations can accept spoiled or rotten food, which food banks, for example, cannot. “It’s not an either/or. They have to go hand in hand,” said Kakadellis. “But we skip all these other steps and go straight to recycling too often.”

Leonard agrees, pointing out the high costs associated with ensuring that the nation’s complex food system is distributed properly: from the farm where crops are harvested to the trucks and refrigerated warehouses that handle packaged goods. “There’s a tremendous amount of energy that went into producing that food,” he said. “We don’t do this to create compost. You know, we do this to feed people.”

Composting, of course, serves more than one purpose and has environmental benefits beyond reducing food loss and waste. For example, strengthen the soil. But Leonard notes that if more work was done on the prevention side — like, making sure farms aren’t overproducing food — then the land wouldn’t be so depleted in the first place and they don’t need that much remediation.

Both Leonard and Kakadellis emphasize that no tool to avoid sending food to landfills should be off the table. Leonard, who previously worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, once did research on organics bans in other states.

“I asked them if they encourage businesses or families to move up the EPA hierarchy and find other better uses for their food waste? And they said, no, no. What we’re really trying to do is just to get people to do something about the hierarchy.” That includes compost.

Until there are more options for pre- and post-consumer food waste, composting may be the best, most affordable option for many people. “It’s the easiest thing to do,” Leonard said. “And it’s probably the safest thing to do until we have better protocols in place.”

This article originally appeared in Grist to https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/the-us-wants-cut-food-waste-in-half-were-not-even-close/. Grist is a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org