Food Waste

According to Project Drawdown, one of the top ways to reduce carbon in the air is to reduce the amount of food we waste.

Americans are known for wasting food—eating excessively large portions at restaurants or over-buying at the supermarket, and then throwing bad food away. We need to find ways to downsize our buying to what we actually use. We can supplement that with composting. On January 1, 2022, California initiated a new neighborhood composting law that will be rolled out over time. The CalRecycle website includes the details and training for this program.

Of course, it’s not just citizens who are wasting food. It goes upstream too—supermarkets hold huge stocks of produce and toss them when they go bad. On top of that, farms tend to send only perfect fruits and vegetables to markets and foods with imperfections get tossed, as consumers also may only choose produce without imperfections

What would it take to change everyone’s—including consumers and producers—mindset about food waste?

Resources

• Project Drawdown Table of Solutions  
• Washington Post article on Food Waste   
• MSN  Article on new CA Compost Law