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Food waste

 
Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Food Waste
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Food waste is the discarding of potentially usable food. Both edible and inedible foods may be considered garbage and therefore wasted. Edible foods are considered inedible when their quality deteriorates until they become unhealthy or noxious. Food deterioration occurs from microbial contamination or from rotting as a consequence of overproduction, storage problems, or improper preparation. Food waste also occurs through food use that returns little nutritional value, like overprocessing and overconsumption.

Edible foods are also wasted when cultural or individual preferences deem food undesirable. For example, some people dislike bread crusts, so they remove them and discard them. Societies with abundant food supplies often consider reusing leftover foods as inconvenient, while less food-rich societies regard food reuse as imperative. Specific parts of animals and plants considered edible in some cultures are considered inedible in others. Animal parts viewed as waste may include bones or shells, skins or scales, fat, blood, intestines, brains, eyes, and stomachs. Plant parts viewed as waste may include cores, seeds, stems, outer leaves, shells, rinds, husks, or peels.

Cultural Variations in Food Waste

Food systems in different cultures vary in the proportion of food waste that is discarded. Cultural variations exist in what is considered garbage, and understanding cultural food rules is crucial in examining food waste. For example, intestines and other internal organs are considered delicacies in China but are discarded as offal in many Western countries. Animal fats are consumed or used as fuel in societies like the Inuit, but in postindustrial nations fats are often trimmed and discarded to reduce caloric intake. Blood is an ingredient in dishes like black pudding in Britain but is discarded in many other societies.

Cultural differences in beliefs about what is edible versus inedible exist more often for animal foods than for plant foods. This may be because animals are similar to humans, so that edibility involves more symbolic meanings. Also, plant food wastes often constitute parts indigestible by humans that therefore have no nutritional value, such as vegetable rinds.

Moral values in most cultures admonish food waste. However, food protests and food riots may intentionally waste food to make ideological and ethical points. Many groups are proud of their efficient use of all parts of a slaughtered animal, such as Cajun claims to use "everything except the squeal" of hogs. Agricultural societies often feed plant food wastes to animals, while many industrial societies process by-products of animal slaughter into livestock feed. Such practices recycle undesired by-products into edible foods and minimize actual food waste. Some societies accept the waste of less-desirable portions of animals and plants as a sign that they have attained a state of affluence and can afford to consume only high-quality items.

Food Systems and Food Waste

Postindustrial societies waste food across all stages of the food system. Food production wastes preharvest food through natural disasters, diseases, or pests; harvested food by inefficient collection of edible crops or livestock; and postharvest food in storage or contamination losses. Food processing wastes food in spillage, spoilage, discarding substandard edible materials, or removing edible food parts in inefficient processing. Food distribution wastes food by offering more food than consumers will purchase and then discarding unsold products. Food acquisition wastes food when consumers purchase more food than they use. Food preparation wastes food by removing edible parts of foodstuffs, spilling or contaminating foods, and rendering foods inedible through improper handling and overcooking. Food consumption wastes food by taking larger portions than can be eaten or by spilling food. Digestion, transport, and metabolism of foods in the body waste nutrients through inefficient absorption, storage, or utilization, thereby failing to use all nutrients that were ingested.

Waste streams in the food system are the by-products of human production and consumption. Garbology, the study of human waste behaviors, identifies food waste as a significant portion of the total human waste stream. Food waste comprises about 10 percent of the total municipal solid waste streams in postindustrial nations and higher percentages in societies lacking mechanized refrigeration and durable packaging.

The four principal methods of disposing of food waste are dumping, burning, minimizing, and recycling. Dumping is the most common method of food waste disposal, but it may create sanitation and landfill problems. Burning food waste is convenient and minimizes the amount of solids needing to be disposed, but burning reduces air quality and is banned in many places. Minimizing food waste occurs through food trades, gifts, donations, and conservation during preparation and after consumption, such as reusing leftovers. Recycling often involves feeding food waste to livestock or composting food refuse. Compost can be used as fertilizer to grow more food, reducing the absolute food waste.

The Cost of Food Waste

Food waste significantly impacts environmental, economic, and community health. The accumulation of discarded food in landfills contributes to air and water pollution, and the burning of food refuse also affects air quality. Economic and nutritional losses are incurred from the calories lost in discarded food as well as from the energy and materials used to transport food waste to landfills. Wasted food means fewer nutrients are available for human consumption, which jeopardizes community food security.

There are also costs associated with the use of salvaged foodstuffs. For example, feeding animal slaughter by-products to livestock has caused outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and hoof and mouth disease in several European nations. Consumption of leftover foods that were not prepared or stored properly is implicated in many cases of foodborne illness.

Historical Changes in Food Waste

Historical transformations have changed the type and amount of food waste generated. Hunter-gatherer cultures often discarded bones as their primary food waste. The development of agriculture added more plant materials to the food waste stream. Industrialized agriculture increased organic waste by-products from large-scale food processing. Increased population growth and urbanization multiplied and concentrated the amount of food waste, which was increasingly dumped as the cities that generated waste became located farther from agricultural areas.

Historical shifts occurred in the conception of food waste. The term "garbage" originated in the French word for entrails and once referred exclusively to food waste. Later the word signified all refuse, since food waste embodies the most unacceptable characteristics of solid waste, putrefaction and attraction of vermin.

Material prosperity reduces the economic necessity for food conservation and reuse, and conspicuous consumption and disposal are demonstrations of social status. Food in postindustrial societies is inexpensive relative to total income, and wasting food is increasingly accepted. Technology that improves the durability of foods, such as plastic packaging, has reduced food waste from spoilage but has created a new waste problem as food packaging contributes more to the waste stream than food itself. Regardless of consumption and disposal practices, the growing world population has increased food waste.

Bibliography

Gallo, Anthony E. "Consumer Food Waste in the United States." National Food Review 3 (1980): 13–16.

Kantor, Linda S., Kathryn Lipton, Alden Manchester, and Victor Oliveria. "Estimating and Addressing America's Food Losses." Food Review 20 (1997): 2–12.

Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.

—Jeffery Sobal Mary Kay Nelson

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Wikipedia: Food waste
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 The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United Kingdom and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.
Packaged food aisles of supermarket in Portland, Oregon

Food waste is "any food substance, raw or cooked, which is discarded, or intended or required to be discarded", according to the legal definition of waste by the EU Commission.[1][2] Since there are several definitions of waste, equally many definitions of food waste exist; professional bodies, including international organizations, state governments and secretariats may formally have their own defintions.[3]

Contents

Definition

One face of a large grey building sweeps, from left, toward the centre. It meets a face of light tan colour separated by a dark grey column, above which is a bowl-shaped glass top, and swings to the right
The European Commission (headquarters pictured) provides one definition of waste, and therefore what constitutes food waste, but many others exist

The definition of waste is a contended subject, often defined on a situational basis, so it follows that food waste is the same;[4] professional bodies, including international organizations, state governments and secretariats may formally have their own definitions.[3]

In 1975, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, legally defined waste for countries in the Union as: "any substance or object which the holder disposes of or is required to dispose of pursuant to the provisions of national law in force".[2] This directive (75/442/EEC) was amended in 1991 (by 91/156), with the addition of "categories of waste" (Annex I) and the omission of any reference to national law.[5] Annex I categorises types of waste by how they occur, and some categories appear specific to certain waste types; "Products whose date for appropriate use has expired" targets food waste, with "date" referring to the expiry date of a food.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines food waste for the United States as being: "Uneaten food and food preparation wastes from residences and commercial establishments such as grocery stores, restaurants, and produce stands, institutional cafeterias and kitchens, and industrial sources like employee lunchrooms".[6] Although it is a nation-wide agency, states are free to define food waste individually, according to policies, preference and other definitions,[7][8] though many choose not to.[9]

Overall, the definition of food waste can vary in many ways, including, but not limited to: what food waste consists of,[10] how food waste is produced,[6] and where/what it is discarded from/generated by.[10] The definition can be varied and complicated by other issues; certain groups do not consider (or have traditionally not considered) food waste to be a waste material, due to its applications;[7][11] some definitions of what food waste consists of are based on other waste definitions (e.g. agricultural waste), and which materials do not meet their definitions.[9]

Sources

Food production

In developing and developed countries who operate either commercial or industrial agriculture, food waste can occur at most stages of the food industry and in significant amounts.[12] In subsistence agriculture, the amounts of food waste are unknown but likely to be insignificant by comparison, due to the limited stages at which waste can occur, and given that food is grown for projected need as opposed to a global marketplace demand.[13][14]

Water pours, from fields of green crop in the background, down a muddy bank towards the foreground
Severe or extreme weather can cause losses of crop for all forms of outdoor agriculture

Research into the food industry of the United States, whose food supply is the most diverse and abundant of any country in the world, found food waste occuring at the beginning of food production.[12] From planting, crops can be subjected to pest infestations and severe weather,[15][16] which cause losses before harvest.[12] Since natural forces (e.g. temperature and precipitation) remain the primary drivers of crop growth, losses from these can be experienced by all forms of outdoor agriculture.[17] The use of machinery in harvesting can cause waste, as harvesters may be unable to discern between ripe and immature crops, or collect only part of a crop.[12] Economic factors, such as regulations and standards for quality and appearance,[18] also cause food waste; farmers often harvest selectively, preferring to leave crops not to standard in the field (where they can be used as fertilizer or animal feed), since they would otherwise be discarded later.[12]

Food processing

Food waste continues post-harvest, but the amounts involved are relatively unknown and difficult to estimate.[19] Regardless, the variety of factors that contribute to food waste, both biological/environmental and socio-economical, would limit the usefulness and reliability of general figures.[19][20] In storage, considerable quantitative losses can be attributed to pests and microorganisms.[21] This is a particular problem for countries that experience a combination of heat (around 30°C) and ambient humidity (between 70 and 90 percent), as such conditions encourage the reproduction of insect pests and microorganisms.[22] Losses in the nutritional value, caloric value and edibility of crops, by extremes of temperature, humidity or the action of microorganisms,[23] also account for food waste;[24][25] these "qualitative losses" are more difficult to assess than quantitative ones.[26] Further losses are generated in the handling of food and by shrinkage in weight or volume.[12][27]

Some of the food waste produced by processing can be difficult to reduce without affecting the quality of the finished product.[28] Food safety regulations are able to claim foods which contradict standards before they reaches markets.[29] Although this can conflict with efforts to reuse food waste (such as in animal feed),[30] safety regulations are in place to ensure the health of the consumer; they are vitally important, especially in the processing of foodstuffs of animal origin (e.g. meat and dairy products), as contaminated products from these sources can lead to and are associated with microbiological and chemical hazards.[31][32]

Retail

Packaging protects food from damage during its transportation from farms and factories via warehouses to retailing, as well as preserving its freshness upon arrival,[33]. Although it avoids considerable food waste.[33][34], packaging can compromise efforts to reduce food waste in other ways, such as by contaminating waste that could be used for animal feedstocks.[35]

Impact

Food waste can have a dramatically varied impact, depending on the amount produced and how it is dealt with; in some countries the amount of food waste is negligible and has little impact. In countries such as the US and the UK however, the social, economic and environmental impact of food wastage is enormous.

In the UK, 6.7 million tonnes per year of wasted food (purchased and edible food which is discarded) amounts to a cost of £10.2 billion each year. This translates a cost of £250 to £400 a year for every British household.[36]

The per capita annual food waste output in North America in 1918 was estimated as 100-200 pounds,[37] with the largest source from domestic properties, although that may have little relevance today.

A study by the University of Arizona in 2004, indicated that 14-15 per cent of US edible food is untouched or unopened, amounting to $43 billion worth of discarded, but edible, food.[38]

Response

Response to the problem of food waste at all social levels has varied hugely.

Prevention

One way of dealing with food waste is to reduce its creation. This attitude has been promoted by campaigns from advisory and environmental groups,[39] and by concentrated media attention on the subject.[36][40]

Consumers can reduce their food waste output at point-of-purchase and in their home by adopting some simple measures; planning when shopping for food is important, spontaneous purchases are shown as often the most wasteful; proper knowledge of food storage reduces foods becoming inedible and thrown away.[39]

Limiting food wastage has seen the adoption of former WWI and II slogans by anti-waste groups such as Wrap[36]

Collection

In areas where waste collection is a public function, food waste is usually managed by the same governmental organization as other waste collection. Most food waste is combined with general waste at the source. Separate collections have the advantage that food wastes can be disposed of in ways not applicable to other wastes.

From the end of the 19th century through the middle of the twentieth century, many municipalities collected food waste (called "garbage" as opposed to "trash") separately. This was typically disinfected by steaming and fed to pigs, either on private farms or in municipal piggeries.[41]

Separate kerbside collection of food waste is now being revived in some areas. To keep collection costs down and raise the rate of food waste segregation, some local authorities, especially in Europe, have introduced "alternate weekly collections" of biodegradable waste (including e.g. garden waste), which enable a wider range of recyclable materials to be collected at reasonable cost, and improve their collection rates. However, they result in a two week wait before the waste will be collected. So there is criticism that, particularly during hot weather, food waste rots and stinks, and attracts vermin.

Much kitchen waste also leaves the home through garbage disposal units.

Disposal

Like other waste, food waste can be dumped, but food waste can also be fed to animals (typically swine), or it can be biodegraded by composting or anaerobic digestion, and reused to enrich soil. Skip Shapiro Enterprises LLC processes beverage and nonmeat food waste at more than forty locations in North America.

Dumping food waste in a landfill causes environmental damage. By volume, it is the largest contributor to methane gas production.[42] It causes odour as it decomposes, attracts flies and vermin, and has the potential to add biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) to the leachate. The EU Landfill Directive and Waste Regulations, like regulations in other countries, enjoin diverting organic wastes away from landfill disposal for these reasons.

Food waste can be composted at home, avoiding central collection entirely, and many local authorities have schemes to provide subsidised composting bin systems. However, the proportion of the population willing to dispose of their food waste in that way may be limited.

Anaerobic digestion produces both useful gaseous products and a solid fibrous "compostable" material. Anaerobic digestion plants can provide energy from waste by burning the methane created from food and other organic wastes to generate electricity, defraying the plant's costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Food waste coming through the sanitary sewers from garbage disposal units is treated along with other sewage and contributes to sludge.

See also

References

References
  1. ^ "The Definition of Waste, Summary of European Court of Justice Judgments". Defra. Updated 2009. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/topics/pdf/ECJCaseLaw20090209.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-20. 
    "Whether it is waste must be determined ... by comparison with the definition set out in Article 1(a) of Directive 75/442, as amended by Directive 91/156, that is to say the discarding of the substance in question or the intention or requirement to discard it"
  2. ^ a b "Council Directive 75/442/EEC of 15 July 1975 on waste". EUR-Lex. 1975. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31975L0442:EN:HTML. Retrieved 2009-08-20. 
    "For the purposes of this Directive: (a) "waste" means any substance or object which the holder disposes of or is required to dispose of pursuant to the provisions of national law in force;" (Amended by Directive 91/156)
  3. ^ a b Oreopoulou, p. 1.
  4. ^ Westendorf 2000, pp. x-xi.
  5. ^ "Council Directive 91/156/EEC of 18 March 1991 amending Directive 75/442/EEC on waste". Eur-lex. 1991. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=391L0156&model=guichett. Retrieved 2009-08-20. 
  6. ^ a b "Terms of Environment: Glossary, Abbreviations and Acronyms (Glossary F)". United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2006. http://www.epa.gov/OCEPAterms/fterms.html. Retrieved 2009-08-20. 
  7. ^ a b "Organic Materials Management Glossary". California Integrated Waste Management Board. 2008. http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Organics/Glossary/. Retrieved 2009-08-20. 
  8. ^ "Chapter 3.1. Compostable Materials Handling Operations and Facilities Regulatory Requirements". California Integrated Waste Management Board. http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/regulations/Title14/ch31.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-25. 
    "Food Material" means any material that was acquired for animal or human consumption, is separated from the municipal solid waste stream, and that does not meet the definition of "agricultural material."
  9. ^ a b "Food Waste Composting Regulations". California Integrated Waste Management Board. 2009. http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Organics/EventsInfo/ADCFoodWaste/FoodWaste.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-25. 
    "Many states surveyed for this paper do not define food waste or distinguish between pre-consumer and post consumer food waste, while other states classify food waste types."
  10. ^ a b "Glossary". Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council. http://www.emrc.org.au/glossary.asp. Retrieved 2009-08-25. 
  11. ^ Oreopoulou, p. 2.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Kantor, p. 3.
  13. ^ Waters, Tony (2007). The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: life beneath the level of the marketplace. Lexington Books. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H1rHCaNFlIwC&lpg=PP1&ots=tc8ofNpnEF&dq=The%20Persistence%20of%20Subsistence%20Agriculture%3A%20life%20beneath%20the%20level%20of%20the%20marketplace&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 
  14. ^ "Food Security". Scientific Alliance. 2009. http://www.gaia-technology.com/sa/newsletters/newsletter.cfm?newsletterID=136&ID=0. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 
    "… there is certainly a lot of waste in the system … Unless, that is, we were to go back to subsistence agriculture …"
  15. ^ Savary, Serge; Laetitia Willocquet, Francisco A. Elazegui, Nancy P. Castilla, and Paul S. Teng (March 2000). Rice pest constraints in tropical Asia: Quantification of yield losses due to rice pests in a range of production situations. http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/pdf/10.1094/PDIS.2000.84.3.357?cookieSet=1. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 
  16. ^ Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Ana Iglesias, X.B. Yang, Paul R. Epstein, and Eric Chivian (2001). "Climate change and extreme weather events, Implications for food production, plant diseases, and pests". Global Change and Human Health 2. http://www.springerlink.com/content/8frmxfdr3l592bej/fulltext.pdf?page=1. Retrieved 2009-08-21. "(Free preview, full article available for purchase)". 
  17. ^ Haile, Menghestab ((Published online) 24 October 2005). "Weather patterns, food security and humanitarian response in sub-Saharan Africa". The Royal Society. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1463/2169.full.pdf+html. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 
    "… frequent extreme weather event such as droughts and floods that reduce agricultural outputs resulting in severe food shortages."
  18. ^ "Wonky fruit & vegetables make a comeback!". European Parliament. 2009. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/story_page/054-57764-201-07-30-909-20090706STO57744-2009-20-07-2009/default_en.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 
  19. ^ a b Morris, p. 1.
  20. ^ Morris, pp. 7-8
  21. ^ Hall, p. 1.
  22. ^ "Loss and waste: Do we really know what is involved?". Food and Agriculture Organization. http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/AC301E/AC301e02.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 
  23. ^ Lacey, J. (1989). "Pre- and post-harvest ecology of fungi causing spoilage of foods and other stored products". Journal of Applied Bacteriology Symposium Supplement. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121369579/PDFSTART. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 
  24. ^ Hall, p. 25.
  25. ^ "Post-harvest system and food losses". Food and Agriculture Organization. http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/AC301E/AC301e03.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 
  26. ^ Kader, p. 1.
  27. ^ Hall, p. 18.
  28. ^ Oreopoulou, p. 3.
  29. ^ Kantor, pp. 3-4.
  30. ^ Dalzell, Janet M. (2000). Food industry and the environment in the European Union: practical issues and cost implications. Springer. p. 300. ISBN 0834217198. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3j-xV3i5iY4C&pg=PA300&lpg=PA300&dq#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
  31. ^ Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines for Meat Processing. 2007. p. 2. http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/gui_EHSGuidelines2007_MeatProcessing/$FILE/Final+-+Meat+Processing.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
  32. ^ "Specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin". Europa. 2009. http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/food_safety/veterinary_checks_and_food_hygiene/f84002_en.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
    "Foodstuffs of animal origin … may present microbiological and chemical hazards"
  33. ^ a b "Making the most of packaging, A strategy for a low-carbon economy". Defra. 2009. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/topics/packaging/pdf/excec-summary-pack-strategy.pdf. Retrieved 2009-09-13. 
  34. ^ Robertson, Gordon L. (2006). Food packaging: principles and practice. CRC Press. http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NFRR6GayR74C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved 2009-09-27. 
  35. ^ Review of Food Waste Depackaging Equipment. Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). 2009. http://www.wrap.org.uk/downloads/Food_waste_depackaging_equipment_FINAL_REPORT_April_09.1db473c1.6989.pdf. Retrieved 2009-09-27. 
  36. ^ a b c The Guardian - Call to use leftovers and cut food waste
  37. ^ Capes and Carpenter Municipal Housecleaning: The Methods and Experiences of American Cities in Collecting and Disposing of their Municipal Wastes, New York: Dutton, 1918. Full text at Google Books.
  38. ^ "US wastes half its food". http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half. Retrieved Mar 27, 2009. 
  39. ^ a b Wrap - Household Food Waste
  40. ^ The Independent
  41. ^ "Most of the smaller cities in this country dispose of a part or all their garbage by feeding to swine, but ... only four maintain municipal piggeries." Capes and Carpenter, 1918, p. 169
  42. ^ Your Source for Landfill Gas Information The Landfill Gas Technical Website.
Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Stop Wasting Food movement - a Danish non-profit consumer movement that fights against food waste


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