Three steps to reduce food waste

One of the first lessons we learn as a child is not to waste our food. Unfortunately, we adults could do better at following our own advice. 

Food waste is a serious problem in the United States. Each year, the average American produces 328 pounds of food waste, about twice the typical person’s body weight. Considering all the effort and energy that goes into making food, throwing it away is a colossal waste. Food waste makes up about 24% of the country’s landfill volume.

Many people have argued for composting and other kinds of “food recycling” as a solution, but that’s only a partial solution. 

The three Rs of food waste

Many people are already familiar with the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. The important thing to remember is the order. Reducing consumption is the most effective of the three steps, followed by reuse, and then recycling. 

Plastic and oil companies sometimes treat recycling as a cure-all, but it’s actually only the final step to close the waste loop. You should only recycle what can’t be reused. 

People usually use the three Rs when talking about plastic, but the same ideas apply to food waste. Composting is a common way to reduce food waste, but like recycling, it’s only one step (and not necessarily the most important one) in a long list of ways to prevent waste. Rather than going straight to composting, people should keep in mind what the EPA calls the “hierarchy of food waste” 

Best ways to reduce food waste 

The best way to reduce food waste is to prevent waste from happening in the first place. That’s why it’s important to focus on ways to prevent perfectly good food from being thrown away. 

Confusing and misleading labels are one of the main reasons that people throw away good food. Many products have a “sell by” date, but these dates aren’t the same as expiration dates. Most food items are still perfectly safe to eat long after their sell by dates. That’s why many states are now changing food labels to be clearer and more accurate. 

Donating to food banks is another great way to ensure that as much food as possible gets eaten. 

Next step: Reusing food that would go to waste

The second best way to reduce food waste is to make sure we’re using the food we produce. We can do this by repurposing perfectly good food that would otherwise go into a landfill. 

One way to do this is by feeding unwanted food to animals, replacing the usual animal food. For obvious reasons, this isn’t as energy efficient as the other solutions outlined above, but it is still a more effective solution than compost. 

Last step: Compost to recycle food waste

Composting is the last way to reduce food waste. Although it is not as energy-efficient as reducing consumption or reusing food, composting is still far superior to sending food to a landfill. That’s because food in a landfill releases large amounts of methane and other greenhouse gases, which have a harmful effect on the environment. 

Composting releases far fewer gases, and also creates rich, fertile soil that can be used for gardening or farming. But the important thing to remember is that composting should never be a first resort. 

If the United States wants to reduce food waste, it needs to keep the food waste hierarchy in mind. More effort to reduce waste at the top of the hierarchy — in supermarkets, restaurants, and other places than throw away perfectly good food — will reduce the need for compost and other, less efficient, forms of food recycling. 

Tell Congress to reduce waste by improving food labeling.