food recovery systems

No yard? No problem! Compost your food waste anyway!

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Food. It’s what’s for dinner (and, well, breakfast and lunch). Until, that is, it becomes food waste. Did you know that more than 50 million tons of food waste goes to landfills every year, or that roughly half is generated at the household level (ReFED)? We can help reduce food waste through better meal planning, proper storage of produce, and preservation methods through canning or freezing. However, no matter how well we implement any of these strategies we will always have corncobs, carrot peels and ends, and other such waste that ultimately ends up discarded.

backyard compostingWhat can we do? A compost pile is an option if you own your home and have a small space available in your yard. Backyard composting is common in United States, but is best suited for those who own a home with a yard. The renter and apartment dwellers without a yard face the greatest challenge. According to the National Multifamily Housing Council, 35% of residents (111 million people) in the United State rent the property they live in.

The only city to truly address this challenge is San Francisco with its curbside composting program; one part of the city’s zero waste initiative. There, food waste is picked up by the city the same way they do for recycling and trash, but to be composted. In Cuyahoga County, we do not have curbside composting or a class II composting facility. As such, food waste has become a very salient issue in Cuyahoga County with many apartment dwellers looking for a compost option.

To address this challenge, OSU Extension and two local partners have teamed up. The Cuyahoga County Extension Office is hosting a Food Waste, Recovery, & Education project this summer at the Tremont Farmers’ Market. Farmers’ markets are great community spaces and provide the perfect location for educating residents on the full life cycle of food. In partnership with Rust Belt Riders, a local composting business, and StoneSoupCLE, a non-profit focused on food recovery, we are providing residents the opportunity to stop by the farmers’ market every Tuesday from June 20th through August 15th to drop off their food scraps for composting by Rust Belt Riders. When residents drop off their food scraps at the market, the scraps are weighed so we can track the pounds of waste diverted from landfills and provide residents with real data describing their individual impact and reduction in their carbon footprint.

What will you do to reduce your food waste? To learn more about food waste and food recovery systems, contact Amanda Osborne (osborne.414@osu.edu), County Extension Educator, Cuyahoga County & Western Reserve EERA.

Feed People, Not Landfills

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How can we improve the environment, save money, and more effectively address food insecurity issues? One approach within the larger sustainability movement involves looking more closely at the issue of food waste.

According to the U.S. EPA, in 2014 more than 38 million tons of food waste was generated, with only 5.1% being diverted from landfills and incinerators through composting efforts. The EPA estimates more food reaches landfills and incinerators than any other single material in our waste streams, accounting for 21.6% of our discarded solid waste.

According to the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), an international environmental advocacy group, “Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States.” When we consider the large amount of natural resources used for food production it is troubling that 40% of food in the U.S. goes uneaten. The uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills where it accounts for a large portion of U.S. methane emissions, posing negative effects on the environment. However, food waste is not only an environmental concern, but also a social and economic issue.

food-waste-2016-12-15The economic effects of food waste are just as startling. Americans throw away the equivalent of $165 billion worth of food each year. In addition to food waste occurring at the consumer level, 10% of the total food supply at the retail level enters the solid waste stream. The USDA estimates that supermarkets lose $15 billion annually in unsold fruits and vegetables alone, in addition to the baked goods, meat, seafood, and ready-made foods that go unsold. These items can easily be recovered from the waste stream by donating them to local food banks and food pantries, and retailers can receive tax benefits for doing so.

Aside from economic and environmental benefits of reducing food waste, recovering or diverting edible food from the waste stream could help to address the larger social issue of food insecurity in the U.S. In 2015, 12.7% of U.S. households (15.8 million households) were food insecure (USDA ERS), and 6.6% of households in Ohio were found to have “very low food security,” defined by the USDA as households in which “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.” Reducing food losses by just 15% recovers enough food to feed more than 25 million Americans every year, which could have a profound impact when we consider that one in six Americans lacks a secure supply of food.

To learn more about food waste and food recovery systems contact Amanda Osborne (osborne.414@osu.edu), County Extension Educator, Cuyahoga County & Western Reserve EERA.