Food Waste

The numbers:

Every day, about 840 mil. people go hungry.
Every year, food waste contributes about 3.3 billion tonnes of GHGs.
About $750 billion is lost every year because of food waste.

According to the Food and Agricultural Association of the UN (FAO), "at least one third, or 1.3 billion tons of food produced is wasted."

Food waste has become a critical social, economic, and environmental issue caused largely by inefficient food distribution and production as well as increasingly wasteful consumer habits.

Food waste solutions can fall into three levels:

"Reducing food waste in the first place"-- ex. purchasing only what you need
"Re-use within the human food chain" -- ex. donating to a food bank
"Recycling and recovery" -- ex. composting

Source: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, "Food waste harms climate, water, land and biodiversity – new FAO report"

External Resources:

Cornell Waste Management Institute -- guides for composting on a variety of scales, educational materials, health and safety, application

"Wasted! The Story of Food Waste" (2017) -- a recent documentary co-produced by chef Anthony Bourdain

"DIVE!" (2010) -- award-winning documentary about dumpster diving (salvaging edible food from garbage bins)

Local Student Projects:

> SSIS Compost Project (2017)