In September 2015, the United States set an ambitious goal of reducing food loss and waste at 50 percent. The idea is to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills released. greenhouse gases As it decays, it is a major contributor to climate change.
Researchers at UC Davis looked at state policies across the country and estimated that each state's food waste was likely to decrease by 2022. They found that without additional work at the federal level, it would likely decrease.
Researchers calculated that even when accounting for reduction measures, the United States still generates about 328 pounds of food waste per person per year, the amount created per person in 2016, shortly after the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture. Announcement of waste cutting target
These numbers indicate that even our best strategies for eliminating waste are not enough to meet our goals, said study lead author Sarah Kakadellis. Propagated in nature This month
To assess how the U.S. is doing to meet its food reduction goals, Kakadellis and her team used publicly available data (from Refed, a non-profit organization Check food waste in the United States) and estimated according to current policy guidelines.
The study's findings are “not surprising” because there is no federal policy regulating food waste, said Lori Leonard, chair of the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. “People are trying to do what they can at scale. state and municipal level,” she said. “But we need national leadership on this.”
Kakadellis points out that the path forward will require changing the way consumers think about certain waste management strategies, such as composting.
Composting turns organic materials like food scraps into nutrient-rich ingredients that can be used to fertilize plants and new plants. It can be considered a “recycled” form of food, even though the final product is not edible. This important detail means consumers must learn to view composting despite its potential environmental benefits in the form of food waste, Kakadellis said.
“It's thinking about the best use of food, which is eating it,” she said.
Even though it is touted as a great alternative to throwing your moldy bananas in the trash, But composting is classified as a form of food waste by the United Nations and European Union. In 2021, the EPA updated its definition of food waste to include fermentation and anaerobic digestion, both of which can receive data. such as uneaten food and turning it into fertilizer or biogas respectively.
In an update to its guidance, the EPA has released a food cleanup hierarchy – which shows the best way to reduce food waste is through prevention. This includes things like adding accurate date labels to food products so consumers aren't confused when something they bought is no longer good or safe. It's also better to find other uses for unsold or uneaten food – such as donating it to food banks or combining it with animal feed that can be used to feed livestock. (Assume that livestock will eventually feed humans.
Composting will play a role in diverting food waste from landfills – because those operations can pick up spoiled or spoiled food that food banks cannot. “It's not/or They have to go hand in hand,” Kakadellis said. “But we are skipping all these other steps and we are going straight to recycling too often.”
Leonard agrees, pointing out the high costs involved in ensuring the country's complex food system runs smoothly: from the farms that harvest crops to the trucks and cold storages that handle packaged goods. “There is an enormous amount of energy that goes into producing that food,” she said. “We don't do that to create compost. You know, we do that to feed people.”
Of course, composting serves more than one purpose and has environmental benefits beyond reducing food loss and waste. For example, it replenishes the soil. But Leonard noted that if more work was done on prevention – such as making sure farms didn't produce too much food – the soil would not be depleted in the first place and would not need to be amended. very much
Both Leonard and Kakadellis emphasize that there is no tool to avoid food, the mission to landfill should be off the table. Leonard, who previously worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, had researched organic bans in other states.
“I asked them if they encourage businesses or households to move up the EPA hierarchy and find other, better uses for their food waste? And they said no, no. What we're trying to do is let people do whatever they want in a hierarchy,” which includes composting.
Until there are more options for washing food both before and after consumers, composting may be the best and most accessible option for many people. “It's something that needs to be done,” Leonard said. “And it's probably the safest thing to do until we have better protocols.”
This article originally appeared in petrify at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/the-us-wants-cut-food-waste-wastein-half-not-not-even–close/– Grist is an independent, not-for-profit media organization dedicated to scoring stories on climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at grist.org