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The United States are nowhere close to the goal of cutting food waste in two by 2030, according to new analysis from the University of California, Davis.
In September 2015, the US set an ambitious target to reduce its food loss and waste by 50 percent. The idea was to reduce the amount of food that ends up at landfills, where the greenhouse gases emits while it dissects, an important factor that contributes to climate change.
Researchers from UC Davis looked at the state policy throughout the country and estimate how much food waste each State will probably decrease in 2022. They discovered that, without more work being done at the federal level, there is no state on their way to achieving national waste reduction.
Researchers calculated that, even when taking reduction measures, the US still generates approximately 328 pounds of food waste per person annually – which is also generated how much waste was generated per person in 2016, shortly after the EPA and the US Department of Agriculture announced it waste -fascinating goal.
These figures indicate that even our best strategies for eliminating waste are not enough to achieve our goals, said Sarah Kakadellis, main author of the study Published in Nature This month.
To assess how the US is doing to achieve the goals of food waste, Kakadellis and its team both used publicly available data (from Refed, a non -profit organization that monitors food waste in the US) and estimates based on the current policy landscape.
The findings of the study were “not surprising” in view of the absence of federal policy for food waste, said Lori Leonard, chairman of the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. “Trying to do what they can do at the constitutional and municipal level,” she said. “But we really need national leadership on this issue.”
Kakadellis suggests that a path forward will also be necessary to shift the way in which consumers think about certain waste management strategies – such as composting.
Composting changes organic material, such as food residues, into a nutrient -rich mixture that can be used to fertilize new plants and crops. It can be considered a form of “recycling” food, although the end product cannot be eaten technically. This important detail means that consumers have to learn to see composting, despite the potential benefits of the environment, as a form of food waste, says Kakadellis.
“It is really thinking about the best use of food, namely to eat it,” she said.
Although it is advertised as a great alternative to throwing your moldy bananas in the trash, composting is indeed classified as a form of food waste by the United Nations and the European Union. In 2021, the EPA updated the definition of food waste to record composting and anaerobic digestion – both can take inputs such as non -up -fored food and make them in artificial fertilizer or biogas respectively.
When updating his guidance, the EPA published a food waste hierarchy – which shows the best way to reduce food waste is to prevent this. This includes things such as adding accurate date labels to food products, so consumers are not confused about when something they have bought has become bad or is no longer safe to eat. It is also preferable to find another use for unsold or not -eaten food – such as donating to food banks or integrating in animal feed, where it can be used to increase cattle (assuming that cattle will eventually also feed people ).
Composting will always play a role in distracting food waste from landfills – because those operations can accept spoiled or rotten food, which food banks cannot, for example. “It is not or/or. They have to go hand in hand, “said Kakadellis. “But we skip all these other steps and we often go to the recycling too often.”
Leonard agrees, pointing to the high costs related to guaranteeing the vast, complex food system of the nation, runs smoothly: from the farm where washed is harvested to the trucks and cold storage that handle packaged goods. “There is an enormous amount of energy that has gone to produce that food,” she said. “We don’t do that to make compost. You know, we do that to feed people. ‘
Composting naturally serves more than one goal and has environmental benefits than reducing food loss and waste. For example, it supplements the soil. But Leonard notes that if more work was done on the prevention side – such as, ensuring that farms do not transfer food – than the soil in the first place would not be so exhausted and would not need so much remediation.
Both Leonard and Kakadellis emphasize that no tool to avoid sending food to landfills from the table. Leonard, who previously collaborated with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, once did research into organic ban in other states.
“I asked them if they encourage companies or households to go on the EPA hierarchy and find others better use for their food residues? And they said, no, no. What we really try to do is bring people to do something about the hierarchy. “That includes composting.
Until there are more options for both pre and post-consumer food waste, composting is perhaps the best, most accessible option for many people. “It’s easiest to do,” said Leonard. “And it is probably the safest thing to do until we have better protocols.”
This article originally appeared in Grinding bee htts.
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