Food waste is arguably the most attractive portion of our garbage bins destined for landfill to be targeted for diversion as:
It is often the highest proportion by weight
It is one of the easiest and least energy intensive waste types to recycle (compost).
Looking at programs from throughout Australia and around the world there are common factors that arise which can be grouped to aid in future efforts. These are:
Non-perfect stock – given the recent decades of supermarkets only presenting near perfect fruit and vegetable stock in stores, when farmers who supply supermarkets harvest produce, they discard an enormous amount of less than perfect stock. Sometimes this ends up as compost for fields or food for livestock, but sometimes it ends up in landfill, especially if it is rejected by the supermarket. Programs like Feedback’s bible inspired Feeding the 5000 find imperfect food from farmers and run it into meals for the masses. Culinary misfits celebrate the imperfections!
Store and market waste – not all food is sold at a supermarket and some of it ends up becoming unsaleable. Before it gets put in the waste bin, organisations are now popping up that work with grocery stores, markets and other bulk food outlets to intersect that waste between display and disposal. Hand for Hunger in the Bahamas gets food destined for landfill and turns it into food for folk in need of nutrition.
Food procurement – Users of bulk food such as restaurants, hotels and catering companies need to make educated guesses to order or buy the right amount of food for the meals they will prepare, as do households. The amount of waste increases with size, inconsistency of meal delivery and design and the life of food items once purchased. Organisations and programs such as Good Food Purchasing provide detailed information on how to procure food to reduce waste but also maximise nutrition, local produce and sustainable practices.
Food design – once the user of the food has it in the fridge or on the bench they need to decide how they will use it. A 3rd world community in Somalia will use as much of a goat as possible whereas a 7 star hotel may use only the best parts of their food and also prepare a larger range of food than necessary so guests feel as though they are feasting and spoilt for choice. One hotel in the Middle East, the Al Maha Desert resort in Dubai design their menu so they can use breakfast leftovers to prepare lunch, for example.
Food storage – a not insignificant proportion of food purchased by businesses and homes is stored for use but then spoils. This is expensive for the purchaser as well as being a terrible waste of the food resource. This is often preventable. Worth noting also is that new migrants enter cultures with different food storage behaviour. For example, cultures without refrigerators tend to not keep leftovers, so when they move to a developed country, they will often throw out leftovers instead of storing for later consumption. Organisations like Save Food From the Fridge are addressing these issues head on.
Composting leftovers – perhaps the main focus of waste diverters at present is redirecting food that will not be reused to composting rather than landfill. New programs, collection systems and processing facilities are starting around the world but a huge proportion of compostable and valuable food waste is still wasted to landfill. Any household should have a home strategy for how it reduces its food waste. Any business should work with its waste services provider or other collector of food waste to divert it from landfill. Any municipality should have a strategy for increasing the proportion of food waste that is diverted from landfill to compost or energy production.
So many tangents to explore from the 6 points above but that we can do in another installment. Once we understand the food use and waste system then we can start to design and change it to make the best use of our valuable and delicious food resources.
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