Jennifer Savage was in a hurry looking to make something for dinner. In the bottom of her refrigerator, she found a container of very old chile rellenos. She then did what millions of Americans do every day: throw rotten food in the trash.
His daughter, Riley, began to cry.
Riley, then a fourth-grade student, had learned in school about people who don’t have enough to eat and about the impact of food waste on the planet: When food rots in landfills, it creates methane, a gas much more potent greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
The family set out to do better. Riley started ordering smaller portions, knowing he could always go back for more. His father started taking leftovers for lunch. Savage searched for recipes that everyone would be happy to eat.
In the United States, food waste is responsible for twice the greenhouse gas emissions of commercial aviation, leading some experts to believe that reducing food waste is one of the best options for combating climate change.
A small but growing number of states and cities have enacted regulations aimed at preventing food from ending up in landfills. Most require residents or businesses to compost, which releases far less methane than food thrown into landfills. California recently mandated that some businesses donate food they would otherwise have thrown away.
In the Columbus, Ohio area where the Savage family lives, about 1,000,000 pounds of food is thrown away every day, making it the largest item ever to enter the landfill. (It’s the same all over the United States.) Households account for 39% of food waste in America, more than restaurants, grocery stores, or farms.
As Dana Gunders, executive director of the nonprofit ReFED, points out, one-third of food in the US is not sold or eaten—evidence of a culture that takes abundance for granted.
In 2021, the Central Ohio Solid Waste Authority, or SWACO, conducted a public awareness campaign to persuade people to waste less food. SWACO covered Upper Arlington, a wealthy Columbus suburb of 36,000, with targeted social media posts, email newsletters and postcards.
The production and transportation of food that is never eaten is a significant part of the carbon footprint of food waste, so the message went beyond composting and urged people to buy less in the first place.
The campaign also emphasized the direct costs: the $1,500 that the average family in central Ohio spends each year on food they don’t eat and the 83 million liters of gasoline used annually to transport food that is thrown away.
Three months later, residents reported wasting 23 percent less food than initially. In 2021, 51 percent of the region’s waste was diverted from a landfill through recycling and composting, much better than the 32 percent US diversion rate.
The few available studies of public awareness campaigns elsewhere suggest they can make a difference: in Toronto, food waste was reduced by 30 percent and in Britain by 18 percent.
In 2018, SWACO awarded the Hilliard City School District a $25,000 composting grant. The following school year, Hilliard’s 14 elementary schools reduced their trash collections by 30 percent and recycling collections by 50 percent, saving the district $22,000. They also diverted 90 tons of food from the landfill.
But the greatest achievement of schools may be what students take away. Later this year, Riley will graduate from Horizon. As a sixth-grader, she said she will continue to eat her leftovers and compost her leftovers, because reducing food waste is “what we’re supposed to do.
“You take eggshells and whatever and throw them in a bin,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a big problem.”
By: SUSAN SHAIN
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6561899, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-02-08 00:00:07
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