Over one-third of food production is wasted; 36 million tons of food end up in landfills in the U.S. every year (US EPA, 2018). Meanwhile, one in nine Americans are food insecure (Feeding America, 2018). The inefficient, unsustainable, and inequitable food value chain attributes to economic loss, environmental degradation, and social injustice. However, there is an inadequate understanding of waste flows, wasteful behaviors, and heterogeneous local characters, which hinders sustainable food waste management (FWM).
The study deploys material flow analysis to estimate the quantity of food waste generated from urban locations, such as homes, grocery stores, restaurants, or institutions. Furthermore, this study examines consumer consumption patterns to better understand the composition of food waste stream and to differentiate non-edible waste from recoverable food for human consumption. This novel approach also enables the categorization of food discards into various types (i.e., protein, fruit, vegetable, dairy, grains, and fat and oil), which will enable research and practice to recover food discards to their highest end values. Based upon the quantity and composition of wasted food, this study further integrates material flow inventory analysis with Waste Reduction Model (WARM by U.S. EPA) to examine the life cycle impacts of various scenarios of FWM methods.
Initial results reveal hotspots of quality food being wasted in groceries and restaurants, which appear to have the highest food donation potentials. The results also confirm previous findings that households’ socioeconomic status and access to food play a role in both the volume and composition of residential food waste generation. FWM policies, such as organic landfill bans, food donation, curbside food scrape collection, and community composting, might disproportionally affect low-income families. Sustainable FMW should consider effective operation and equitable outcomes that balance environmental and social objectives.
