According to Feeding America, nearly 119 billion pounds of food, or 40% of all the food in the United States is wasted each year. That equates to around 130 billion meals that went uneaten and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year (“U.S. Hunger Relief Organization”). When uneaten food breaks down in landfills, methane gas is released into the atmosphere. Being 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, food waste emissions have been a silent killer, greatly contributing to global warming and air pollution. Through the social lens, possible solutions that can be implemented to help handle organic waste in the United States include encouraging food donation, shifting food perceptions, composting, and investing in technological advances.

A local way to combat organic food waste is by donating food to nonprofit organizations such as Feeding America and Food Cycle LA. For instance, Feeding America works with over 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries scattered around America and partners with markets to donate, otherwise, thrown-out foods to families in need. Donating food avoids increased waste from near-expiring food while also providing low-income families with nutritious food options. However, many statistics show that citizens are less willing to go out of their way to find a food pantry to donate to and are instead sending it straight to landfills. Instead, if each community could increase the availability of one food bank and four food pantries in every city for locals to donate to, citizens would be far more willing to drop off uneaten food at a local pantry. Additionally, supermarkets can also donate fresh goods to local pantries while dry and nonperishable goods go to food banks. By law, all food donations to nonprofit organizations are entitled to file for a tax deduction which recovers the cost of lost inventory. By leveraging the law, businesses, suppliers, and donation recipients can all benefit by preventing unsold produce from going to waste. Supermarkets being the "main purchase point for food have the ability to influence which products make it on the shelves and the types of food consumers purchase. Supermarkets also have the power to decide what happens to unsold food and how to encourage consumers to buy visually imperfect food to reduce food waste." (Bolos 2) This brings to light that many overproduced foods are quality checked for imperfections and are thrown out instead of actively being donated. This waste not only is a lack of efficiency in distributing food that would otherwise harm the environment but also wasted profits that harm the companies. So not only does donating food benefit society, but it is also profitable and helps the environment.

Changing society’s perceptions of food labels and encouraging composting is another way to reduce food waste. People throw away edible food because the labels go past the best by dates. “Best by” or “best before” labels are not expirations labels, they are merely suggestions that recommend consumption before a certain date to ensure the highest quality of a product. Food can still be safely consumed weeks after the best-before date but consumers “are often confused as to how to interpret these labels and frequently infer incorrect information about a product’s quality and/or safety” (Boys and Rickard 2). Educating society on the differences between food labels through learning programs and schools can help reduce household food waste. Along with shifting food perceptions, which are aimed at preventing future waste, composting is another solution that can reuse leftover foods and scraps. Throwing away food scraps and spoiled food adds to global food waste, but instead, composting recycles the food to create nutrition-rich soil. A research study by the World Wildlife Organization found that “national food waste in schools could amount to approximately 530,000 tons per year (excluding milk, which was calculated separately). This roughly translates into: 1.9 Million Metric tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas, 20.9 Billion Gallons of water, and 1.7 Billion US dollars” (“Food Waste Warriors”). Through schools, children can get educated on the different types of food labels and be encouraged to compost. Schools should make an effort to take cafeteria waste and contribute any leftovers to compost bins with the help of students, explaining the real benefits of doing so even when students are off campus. Additionally, neighborhoods should be encouraged to have a community compost bin for each household to dispose of their leftover food. This would provide nutrition-rich soil for the community to use in household or community gardens significantly reducing food waste in landfills. By educating both students and adults on the differences in food labels and encouraging composting, there can be an exponential reduction in household food waste.

In this new age, there have been many technological advancements that have proposed new ways to reduce food waste. For instance, Olio is an app that connects neighbors to share otherwise wasted food. A user would upload leftover food or near-expiring food onto the app and nearby neighbors have the option to pick up the food so it doesn’t go to waste. Researchers have emphasized that “technological solutions such as mobile phone apps to share leftover food with strangers or refrigerator cameras that notify users when food will soon become spoiled could prove critical in addressing [food waste] problems” (de Bruin et al. 1). Like Olio, refrigerator cameras can connect to phones to alert users when food will go bad which can reduce the loss of forgotten foods in the back of the fridge. Winnow is another product that is aimed to reduce food waste, specifically utilized by hotels, restaurants, and all sorts of industrial kitchens. It accurately scans leftover and discarded food and shows the price of the cost. These businesses can check and see how much money they are losing from excess ingredients encouraging them to be more conscious of their food costs. Businesses that have used winnow solutions have reduced their food waste by 50% and have increased net profits. Well-known partners such as Ikea have reduced waste by 75% and saved 1.2 million meals in the UK only. Hilton Dubai Jumeirah, having also partnered with Winnow, has “achieved great results: Food waste cut by 70%, $65,000 saved in reduced food costs, and 25,000 meals a year saved from being thrown away” (“Commercial Food Waste Solutions”). If more businesses, both small and large, partnered with Winnow, there could be a significant reduction in food waste. Another technological advancement aimed toward commercial use is Shelf Engine which is a solution for reducing food spoilage in grocery stores. Shelf Engine’s intelligent forecasting uses a store’s “daily sales data, along with real-world considerations like local events, holidays, and weather, to generate perfect, profit-maximizing orders for each product, every day” (“Sell More. Waste Less”). The application keeps shelves fully stocked without food spoiling or going to waste, benefitting both the environment and profitability. By taking advantage of all the technological advancements available today, a huge reduction of food waste can be made possible.

Encouraging food donations, food perceptions, and technological advances are all possible solutions to tackle and reduce organic food waste in the United States. Making food pantries more accessible for donation and encouraging corporations to donate leftover foods can reduce the amount of perfectly good foods from the source, ending up in landfills. Educating people on food labels and the benefits of composting are ways to push proper education for change in the future and tackle food waste in each household. Food waste has only continued to increase and is putting an environmental strain on the earth. Now is the time to take action because this issue has only continued to progress for the worse. This is not something that one person can solve, rather, how willing society is to bring unity to implement already successful solutions. How successful these solutions may be can only be determined by how willing citizens are to change the way they live.

Works Cited 

Bolos, Laura Andreea, et al. “Consumer Choice and Food Waste: Can Nudging Help?” Choices, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1–7. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26758662. Accessed 20 Feb. 2023.

​​Boys, Kathryn A., and Bradley J. Rickard. “Examining Food Loss and Food Waste in the United States.” Choices, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1–3. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26758659. Accessed 20 Feb. 2023.

“Commercial Food Waste Solutions.” Winnow, www.winnowsolutions.com/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

de Bruin, Annemarieke, et al. Understanding Why People Waste Food. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2019. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/resrep23009. Accessed 20 Feb. 2023.

“Food Waste Warriors.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, www.worldwildlife.org/stories/food-waste-warriors. Accessed 3 March 2023.

“Sell More. Waste Less.” Shelf Engine, 14 Oct. 2022, shelfengine.com/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

“U.S. Hunger Relief Organization.” Feeding America, www.feedingamerica.org/. Accessed 3 March 2023.