The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Wasted Food Scale is a crucial tool for prioritizing actions to prevent and divert wasted food, thereby minimizing environmental impact. This scale acts as a guide, ranking different pathways for managing wasted food from the most to least preferred, offering a spectrum of options for individuals and organizations alike.
This food scale emphasizes preventing food waste at its source and diverting unavoidable waste away from landfills. The tiers are arranged from most environmentally beneficial (top left) to least beneficial (bottom right). Pathways within each tier are considered equally preferable. The top tiers – prevention, donation, and upcycling – represent the most desirable options, aligning with a circular economy by ensuring food is used for its primary purpose: nourishing people. Conversely, landfilling, incineration, and sending food waste down the drain are the least favored due to their significant environmental burdens and limited contribution to circularity.
The Wasted Food Scale is grounded in the findings of the EPA’s 2023 report, From Field to Bin: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste Management Pathways. This comprehensive report evaluated 11 common pathways for managing wasted food in the U.S., considering both environmental impacts and contributions to a circular economy. This food scale is an updated version of the earlier Food Recovery Hierarchy, incorporating the latest scientific research and advancements in technologies and practices for wasted food management.
Key considerations for using this food scale:
- The rankings are specific to wasted food management and do not extend to other types of municipal solid waste.
- Economic and social factors are not included in this environmental ranking.
- The impacts of landfilling and incineration are considered both with and without energy recovery.
- “Send down the drain” refers to food waste processed at water resource recovery facilities, with or without anaerobic digestion.
- Direct delivery of food to an anaerobic digester is classified as the anaerobic digestion pathway, even if located at a water resource recovery facility.
- Rankings for “leave unharvested” and “apply to the land” are based on limited data, suggesting areas for further research and consideration.
Exploring Wasted Food Pathways: A Detailed Look at the Food Scale
To effectively utilize the food scale, it’s important to understand each pathway in detail.
1. Prevent Wasted Food: The Top Tier of the Food Scale
Prevention is unequivocally the most environmentally sound approach on the food scale. When food is wasted, we also waste all the resources—water, energy, labor, and materials—invested in its production, processing, distribution, and preparation. Reducing food waste at the source minimizes these losses and conserves valuable resources. Focusing on prevention strategies offers the greatest positive impact.
2. Donate Food: Nourishing People and Reducing Waste
Donating wholesome, surplus food to food banks, shelters, and other organizations is a highly preferred pathway on the food scale. This includes food from farms, grocery stores, restaurants, and homes. Food donation ensures that edible food serves its primary purpose: to feed people. By rescuing and redistributing food, we prevent waste and support food security within communities. This pathway effectively leverages the resources already invested in food production.
3. Upcycle Food: Innovative Uses for Food Byproducts
Upcycling involves transforming food scraps and byproducts into new, value-added food products. This often occurs at the manufacturing and processing stages. Examples include using fruit peels for flavoring, vegetable stems for new dishes, or spent grains from brewing for baking. Upcycling keeps food within the human food chain, reducing waste and maximizing the use of resources. It represents a creative and resourceful approach to food waste management, ranking high on the food scale.
4. Feed Animals: Repurposing Food for Livestock
Utilizing wasted food as animal feed is another beneficial pathway. This practice can replace conventional animal feed production, such as growing soy or corn, reducing the environmental footprint associated with feed production. Processing, like cooking or drying, is often necessary to prepare wasted food for animal consumption. Feeding animals is a practical way to divert food from landfills and utilize its nutritional value, positioning it favorably on the food scale.
5. Leave Unharvested: Weighing Environmental Impacts
Sometimes, crops are left unharvested due to market conditions, environmental factors, or other challenges. While harvesting crops for consumption is always the primary goal, leaving crops unharvested can be preferable in certain situations. If crops are unlikely to be consumed even if harvested, leaving them in the field avoids the environmental costs of harvesting, processing, and transportation. Unharvested crops can also benefit the soil by providing nutrients and carbon as they decompose, improving soil health for future crops. This pathway requires careful consideration of various factors and is ranked in the mid-range of the food scale.
6. Anaerobic Digestion with Beneficial Use of Digestate/Biosolids: Renewable Energy and Soil Amendment
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a process where microorganisms break down organic materials, like wasted food, in the absence of oxygen. This process produces biogas, a source of renewable energy, and digestate/biosolids, nutrient-rich byproducts that can be used as fertilizer or soil amendments. When digestate or biosolids are used beneficially, this AD pathway is considered environmentally advantageous. It offers both renewable energy production and nutrient recovery, making it a valuable option on the food scale.
7. Compost: Creating Valuable Soil Amendment
Composting is the aerobic decomposition of organic materials, transforming wasted food and yard trimmings into compost, a valuable soil amendment. Compost improves soil health, enhances water retention, and reduces erosion. Composting recycles organic matter and nutrients, contributing to long-term soil health and ecosystem resilience. It’s an environmentally sound method for managing food waste and is well-regarded on the food scale.
8. Anaerobic Digestion with Disposal of Digestate/Biosolids: Reduced Benefits
While anaerobic digestion itself offers renewable energy benefits, if the resulting digestate or biosolids are disposed of (e.g., in landfills), the overall environmental benefits are reduced. Disposing of these byproducts means losing valuable nutrients and diminishing the potential for soil improvement. This pathway is ranked lower on the food scale than AD with beneficial use, as it fails to fully capitalize on the resource recovery potential of the process.
9. Apply to Land: Variable Impacts
Applying raw wasted food to land as a soil amendment is sometimes practiced, particularly with food processing waste. However, the environmental impacts can vary greatly depending on the type and composition of the food waste. While it can offer some soil benefits, it’s crucial to carefully assess the specific waste stream and application methods to ensure environmental safety and efficacy. This pathway’s ranking on the food scale reflects its variable nature and the need for careful management.
10. Landfill: A Least Preferred Option on the Food Scale
Landfilling is one of the least desirable pathways on the food scale. Food waste in landfills decomposes anaerobically, generating methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a significant impact on climate change. Landfills are a major source of methane emissions from food waste. Moreover, landfilling prevents the recovery of valuable nutrients and resources contained in food waste.
11. Incinerate: Inefficient Energy Recovery
Incineration, or combustion, of mixed municipal solid waste including food waste is also a less preferred option. While incineration can produce energy, food waste is a poor feedstock due to its high moisture content and low energy value. Incineration also fails to recover the nutrients present in food waste and contributes to air emissions. On the food scale, incineration is ranked among the least desirable pathways.
12. Send Down the Drain: Wastewater Treatment Challenges
Sending food waste down the drain is the least preferred pathway on the food scale. Food waste in sewers decomposes rapidly, releasing methane directly into the atmosphere. Wastewater treatment plants require additional energy to process nutrient-rich food waste. Even if anaerobic digestion is used at the treatment facility, the recovered energy typically does not offset the methane emissions from sewers and the increased energy demand for treatment. This pathway represents a significant environmental burden and offers minimal resource recovery.
Downloads: Accessing the Food Scale Resources
For easy access and broader understanding, detailed and simplified versions of the Wasted Food Scale are available for download, providing valuable resources for implementing these strategies. By understanding and utilizing this food scale, individuals, businesses, and communities can make informed decisions to minimize food waste and its environmental impact, moving towards a more sustainable food system.
