food waste research topic

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From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste

Over one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten, wasting the resources used to produce it and creating a myriad of environmental impacts. Food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the U.S., comprising 24 and 22 percent of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste, respectively. Reducing and preventing food waste can increase food security, foster productivity and economic efficiency, promote resource and energy conservation, and address climate change. 

EPA prepared the report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste, to inform domestic policymakers, researchers, and the public about the environmental footprint of food loss and waste in the U.S. and the environmental benefits that can be achieved by reducing U.S. food loss and waste. It focuses primarily on five inputs to the U.S. cradle-to-consumer food supply chain -- agricultural land use, water use, application of pesticides and fertilizers, and energy use -- plus one environmental impact -- green house gas emissions. 

This report provides estimates of the environmental footprint of current levels of food loss and waste to assist stakeholders in clearly communicating the significance; decision-making among competing environmental priorities; and designing tailored reduction strategies that maximize environmental benefits. The report also identifies key knowledge gaps where new research could improve our understanding of U.S. food loss and waste and help shape successful strategies to reduce its environmental impact.

From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste (pdf) (11.5 MB, November 30, 2021)

Visit EPA's Food Waste Research webpage

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Consumer Behaviour and Food Waste: Understanding and Mitigating Waste with a Technology Probe

Eliot jones-garcia.

1 Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK; [email protected]

2 Future Food Beacon, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Nottingham LE12 5RD, UK

3 Mixed Reality Lab, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK; [email protected]

Serafim Bakalis

4 Department of Food Science, University of Copenhagen, DK-1958 Copenhagen, Denmark

Martin Flintham

Associated data.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns and ethical commitments.

Globally, nearly one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. This equals a total of 1.3. billion tonnes per year, which is a large, unnecessary burden for the environment and the economy. Research and development have delivered a wealth of resources for understanding food waste, yet little is known about where food wasting occurs in the home. The study begins with a literature review of articles that deal with food waste and consumer behaviour, reflecting on their definition of ‘waste’, approach, findings and recommendations. Having noticed a lack of convergence in the literature, and an absence of research into digital technologies for the study of food waste, the potential for incorporating novel technology probe methodologies is explored. Building on the proliferation of internet of things devices, the ‘smart bin’ is introduced as an effective intervention for making visible routine household food wasting practices. These data were then triangulated with user interviews, leading to an enriched qualitative discussion and revealing drivers and mitigators of waste. This paper concludes with some reflections on the smart bin as a domestic product and how it might synthesise previous understandings of consumer behaviour, leading to better informed food waste policies and initiatives.

1. Introduction

Mounting concerns over climate change and a move toward greater environmental sustainability bring food consumption and dietary habits to the fore. Globally, nearly one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. This equals a total of 1.3. billion tonnes per year. It has been shown that if Europeans could reduce waste in the home, the point at which the environmental cost is the highest, effects on climate change could be reduced [ 1 ].

Research into the main drivers of food waste and potential strategies for limiting it has grown considerably. A 2018 systematic review of food waste literature found that academic output had doubled in the preceding five years [ 1 ]. This was one of seven similar reviews published in the same period [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. There is clearly a significant effort being conducted to gather and consolidate the existing research. This is no surprise considering the wealth of understanding on how to deal with food waste, both in research and in practice.

The aim of this paper is two-fold; first, to present a gap in the knowledge that emerges between different strands of food waste research; second, in light of this literature, to demonstrate the value of using a technology probe, a novel methodology drawn from the computer sciences, for understanding consumer behaviour.

Beginning in the conceptual grounding and translating into findings and interventions, the research setting or ‘where the responsibility lies’ with food waste is a contentious topic [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. It can be broadly drawn between two perspectives. One suggests that waste is an individual action rooted in human agency, or the capacity for people to make conscious, rational decisions about their waste. The other argues that wasting practices are a product of their social and economic context, and are unique to different peoples, localities and resources.

These perspectives are divergent, reflecting opposing socio-political positions in the food waste debate. Assumptions regarding the key drivers of food waste are conducive to the context and setting with which researchers approach consumer behaviour, and ultimately what their findings indicate. Advocates of consumer agency suggest that personal testimony is a sufficient source of evidence, collecting data predominantly through quantitative surveys. However, these are not necessarily representative; data are selectively reported, there are few large-scale data rich studies and they are difficult to administer. Their findings largely prescribe incentives at the front end, encouraging responsibility in purchasing and planning [ 11 , 12 , 13 ].

Critics suggest these actions do not fully engage with embedded practices. Instead, they base their findings on the long-term study of human–food interactions and suggest a widespread transformation in practices of production, retail and consumption [ 9 ]. Due to a series of biases and constraints, they fail to appreciate the full picture of household food waste or produce generalisable insights. This reveals that there is little useful knowledge about where food wasting occurs in the home, and few useful mitigation strategies beyond education and purchasing campaigns.

The technology probe is a research intervention that studies how new artefacts fit into the everyday lives of users. As such, it may speak to a future in which food waste issues are resolved through smart products and devices, whilst generating insight into consumer behaviour now. Purchasing patterns [ 14 ], dietary habits [ 15 ] and food waste [ 16 ] are already increasingly interfaced through digital technologies and subject to systematic, highly granular data collection at scale. These data are considered to have significant social and economic value, generating individualised insight for users to encourage certain practices, and allowing public and private organisations to strategise based on aggregated patterns in behaviour. There is a clear trajectory toward generating more of these devices; however, there is a deficit of research into applications and limitations [ 17 ].

By ‘probing’ food waste practices, we might begin to learn what this future might look like, whilst pre-empting potential design considerations. For example, in Hutchinson et al.’s [ 18 ] defining paper, the authors consider digital information communication technologies for maintaining intimate relationships between family members. They were able to reveal the needs and desires of groups of users, to consider real-life scenarios and use cases, and engage participants in devising new ways of designing technology [ 18 , 19 ].

Significantly, this led to considerations regarding how users both adapt their behaviour to technologies and remake technologies according to their own values [ 18 ]. Smart kitchen appliances are gaining considerable attention as a more effective instigator of behaviour change, particularly around issues of sustainability, nudging consumers into better practice [ 20 ]. Their impacts, however, frequently fall short due to lack of understanding of users, their context and the complexity of problem they seek to resolve [ 17 , 21 ]. This paper introduces the ‘smart bin’, a device that records food waste to learn about consumer behaviour, filling the gap between different strands in research whilst inspiring future design.

As such, this is not a proof of concept or prototype but a demonstration of the technology probe methodology through an investigation into food waste. As summarised in Figure 1 , the paper begins with an exploration into the accepted definition of waste within academic works, followed by a review of some of the key debates arising from understandings of consumer–food interactions and how these translate into interventions. Next, the technology probe and some of the potential gains to be made are introduced, touching on each of the core questions involved in this approach. The final section reflects on the smart bin and how this has made visible routine household practices, leading to amplified qualitative discussion.

Summary of objectives.

2. Defining Food Waste

Historically, in urban contexts, public waste management was focused on removing potentially harmful substances or materials away from human settlements. Waste was understood as a ‘necessary social evil’ to be disposed of and hidden away. Food waste has been attributed to a shift in line with the post-war period of affluence, where access to resources became relatively abundant and frugality toward food was no longer considered a social virtue. A growing body of work, however, recognises waste both as a key indicator in defining the current socio-economic context and for its central role in environmental and cultural politics [ 10 ].

These academic works have approached the conceptualisation of ‘food waste’ in several ways. A clear cut example would be Papargyropoulou [ 22 ] (p.108), who states that ‘ food waste, or losses, refer to the decrease in edible food mass throughout the human Food supply chain .’ A more human or nuanced perspective, however, would account for the subjectivity in determining how food would become waste, particularly useful in a domestic context. Pongrácz and Pohjola [ 23 ] (p.142) argue that ‘the label ‘waste’ does not necessarily mean that the thing is an ultimate waste, rather, it means that it will be treated as waste. ’ This assertion makes space for the emergence of sustainable resource management, grounded on the notion that ‘waste’ can be a ‘resource’. What sets food waste apart from other forms is that it is inherently biodegradable and, as such, can be repurposed as either fertiliser for plants or to produce energy [ 23 ].

However, defining waste is a key challenge and most studies in practice tend to draw toward what is culturally relevant to the context and can be normatively defined as ‘avoidable’ or ‘unavoidable’. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a UK based charity founded in 2000, has proven extremely influential in this. Their definition [ 24 ] accounts for flexibility while situating waste inside the home and is as follows:

Avoidable waste includes food and drink thrown away that was, at some point prior to disposal, edible (e.g., slice of bread, apples, meat).

Possibly avoidable waste includes food and drink that some people eat and others do not (e.g., bread crusts), or that can be eaten when a food is prepared in one way but not in another (e.g., potato skins).

Unavoidable waste is waste that arises from food or drink preparation that is not, and has not been, edible under normal circumstances (e.g., meat bones, egg shells, pineapple skin, tea bags).

It is suggested that up to 60% of UK food waste is deemed avoidable [ 8 ]. Re-purposing as compost, however, is often considered a method to offset food waste [ 25 ], with some papers claiming it is central in defining a conscious consumer [ 26 ]. Further claims can be made about feeding leftovers to animals [ 27 , 28 ]. This is ultimately reflected in the ‘responsibility’ debate; while composting is a more ‘conscious’ practice than simply binning food, does this assuage or undermine the motivation for conserving food in the first place?

Evans [ 29 ] attempts to re-locate the definition altogether, rejecting the understanding of waste as a separate social category and more as an embedded form of everyday life. This moves beyond an orientation based on recycling, to achieve a reduction in the sources of waste. In this instance, Evans deviates from the purview of the home as a black box, equating the amount of food entering and leaving a household to minimise waste with little to no understanding of what occurs inside. Alternatively, he joins a host of authors who view the problem in terms of redefining consumption practices as a broader socio-cultural discussion involving infrastructure, governments, NGOs and industry [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ].

3. Understanding Waste and Consumer Behaviour

The empirical study of food waste, as with the accepted definition, is varied and convoluted. Differing streams yield distinct results, further intensifying the conceptual debate. In this section, the following key contexts that manifest human behaviour about food waste are discussed, as emerging from the literature: (1) personal testimony; (2) human-food interaction; (3) societal discourse.

3.1. Personal Testimony

3.1.1. description.

Personal testimony is the participant’s account of their food wasting practices. Data are most frequently generated through quantitative questionnaires and diary studies in which a pre-defined group of people respond to a list of standardised questions, either in a single intervention or over a set period. In other cases, interviews with participants allow a richer discussion, with greater flexibility toward question and answer. Quantitative studies are preferred overall as they can easily access a large sample and draw insights across populations; they tend to explore varying social-demographics and, while there is a concentration of studies in developed countries, there is a range of studies located across Europe [ 34 , 35 ], Australasia [ 25 , 26 ] and North America [ 3 ]. Three exceptions identified for this review were in Uruguay [ 12 ], Qatar [ 36 ] and Egypt [ 37 ]. Some studies focus solely on one demographic, be it the youth [ 13 , 35 ] or compare across them [ 35 , 38 ]. It appears that cultural differences are significant; Spanish and Italians being much more proactive in their adjudication of food edibility than British consumers [ 35 ].

3.1.2. Findings

While the depth of understanding may be limited in specific cases, for quantitative surveys, it is possible to apply statistical regression [ 39 ], causal maps [ 40 ], principal component analysis [ 41 ] among other original attempts at modelling consumer behaviour [ 42 ]. This is evident in the similarities made in drivers of waste in different studies. Eating outside of the home [ 35 ], increased income and expenditure are widely associated with increased waste [ 40 ]. Factors of affluence [ 43 , 44 ], time-management [ 27 ], convenience culture and consumer price-quality relations [ 12 ] reveal much about the value consumers have for their food. This is intensified by a lack of understanding and awareness on the environmental impacts of their waste [ 25 , 40 ] and limited efforts made to aid in planning, particularly the understanding of ‘use-by’ dates [ 28 , 35 , 45 ]

Interviews can reveal more affective and contextually driven notions of food waste. Moral norms are not found to be influential [ 46 ]. Similarly, ideologies tend to be inconsistent with practices including vegetarians, vegans and those that consider themselves green consumers [ 25 ]. For some, participants are aware of the need to do more but are also careless [ 26 , 40 , 41 ]. In other cases, there is a complete lack of recognition of responsibility [ 47 ].

From this understanding of food waste, key recommendations for mitigation focus on motivating consumers to be more responsible [ 36 , 42 , 48 ]. Aschemann-Witzel et al. [ 6 ] frame food waste as a problem of inertia and disregard among consumers, with education and efforts to change attitudes considered as key areas for future interventions [ 34 ]. In particular, guilt is a frequently reported driver of avoiding food waste. Septianto et al. [ 49 ] have shown how this can be harnessed, emphasising the importance of emotion in media campaigning; embedding consumers with gratitude to instil a greater sense of value. Wikström et al. [ 50 ] stress the importance of doing this through appropriate packaging.

3.1.3. Implications and Limitations

In terms of amounts of food wasted, studies that attempt to track patterns of consumption must rely on self-reporting and this is widely stated as a limitation to their validity [ 12 , 25 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 47 , 48 , 51 ]. Many of the surveys are undertaken online, which serves a self-selection bias [ 12 , 35 , 40 , 49 ]. Further difficulties include the lack of perceived consequences; in other similar campaigns for environmental action, such as recycling or reduced energy consumption, there is often a direct and obvious impact on the participant (cost of energy) [ 42 ]. These factors combined can potentially lead to unreliable testimony and either passivity or misrecognition among participants.

3.2. Human–Food Interaction

3.2.1. description.

While personal testimony appears to be the most prolific source of data for consumer behaviour, likely as they are perceived to be the most practical, generalisable and easily translated into policy, human–food interaction studies are equally valuable. Predominantly, these studies involve researcher observation of participants engaging with their food, generally in the home and in combination with supporting interviews. While they take a smaller sample size, they can record richer data, with greater depth.

3.2.2. Findings

Evans [ 29 ] completed 8 months of ethnographic observation and interviews with 19 households in Manchester, UK. His analysis reveals the different ways consumers’ eating habits determine what happens to the food before it is even considered waste; how ‘excess’ or ‘surplus’ seamlessly becomes ‘waste’. Despite growing awareness and infrastructure, many groups and individuals remain disengaged with the systems of food recovery, including hygiene practices and lack of trust.

Lazekk [ 52 ] spent 4 months observing and intervening in a group of students. His conclusions included the necessity for such a methodology to realise the underlying social practices that result in food waste mitigation, particularly those surrounding the sharing of food as a mechanism for counteracting over provision. Furthermore, the lack of awareness participants had in their own actions undermined the previous assumptions about personal motivations to prevent waste.

Several authors state identity as a key driver of food waste [ 53 , 54 , 55 ]. Identity is understood as a an organising principle by which actors can be socially recognisable, while shaping the way they act in accordance with the world around them [ 56 ]. Open ended observation and interviews can draw out aspects such as a self-perceived and or culturally defined need to be a ‘good-provider’, resulting in excessive purchasing and waste. It was consistently found that households would provide surplus food routinely, which would over time lead to large amounts of waste [ 29 ].

Examples of design considerations for food include the work of Ganglbauer et al. [ 20 ] and Bucci et al. [ 57 ], who explore the use of smart fridges. They combined observation of participants and user input directly in the construction and testing of technologies. Their findings supported the disparity between aspiring food practices and actual recorded data [ 4 ]. The evidence pointed toward smart fridges as effective strategies for food waste prevention, although few large scale studies have been undertaken [ 5 ].

Morone et al. [ 58 ] diverge from the conventional methods of research, developing an experimental design in which a group of students were asked to purchase, cook and consume food as a collective. The experiment lasted a week, in which they were questioned, observed and their waste was recorded. While there was no clear advantage over the control group, households that practiced food sharing would often include key ‘enabler’ factors (skills, environmentally friendly and collaborative behaviours) that would provide a positive influence on participants. This speaks to both the importance of individual knowledge and shared practices on food preparation and storage.

Kim et al. [ 59 ] have pioneered a co-design approach to media campaigning, transcending the expert-led dynamic of previous initiatives. This was achieved first through focus groups, then a campaign and, finally, a ‘fridge audit’ to triangulate and quantitively confirm the impact of their efforts. Their combined analysis reveals the value in opening up the campaign narrative to reflexivity among consumers; allowing a genuine form of agency to flourish, rather than attempting to shape the best, most economically sensical decision in retail [ 60 ].

3.2.3. Limitations

As is the case with personal testimonies, human–food studies have problems with participant bias; there is frequently a lack of trust as participants desire to present themselves in a good light in front of the researcher [ 53 ]. It is difficult to account for the actual mass of waste as record taking interrupts the routines that researchers are attempting to observe [ 61 , 62 ]. Ethnographic studies rely on a researcher’s interpretation of important data, are difficult to generalise, costly, time consuming and, in comparison to online surveys, demand significant cooperation from participants [ 30 ].

3.3. Societal Discourse

3.3.1. description.

Human understandings and behaviour regarding food waste are revealed through discourse in the public domain. This ranges from the use of language, narrative and or efficacy of existing food waste campaigns to consumer discussions on social media. These research settings reflect how society engages and understands food waste at different levels, how consumers respond to interventions and how they discuss food waste in their personal circles. Data are scrapped from internet sites, collected through food labelling or advertising campaigns.

3.3.2. Findings

Aschemann-Witzel et al. [ 61 ], emerging from quantitative studies on consumer behaviour, acknowledge several key indicators of success in campaigns that increase awareness and motivating consumers, including capacity building, redistribution channels and supply chain opportunities. Närvänen et al. [ 63 ] found that by promoting ‘positive messages’, specifically those related to creativity, aesthetics and ethics of food waste, campaigns were able to embed issues of sustainability, overcome individual responsibilisation and challenge socio-cultural issues of consumption. Similarly, Specht and Buck [ 64 ] identify spaces within Twitter for discussing food waste and explicate how activism and membership of likeminded groups is a good indication of motivation for mitigation, whilst also a wealthy source of information on how consumers understand their waste.

3.3.3. Limitations

In each case, the authors recognise that this is based on discourse alone and has no means of measuring the impact of such campaigns or discussions in practice [ 65 ]. The authors identified many limitations, including those related to the unique cultural context of interventions, the lack of depth in studying participants lives, the assumption that discussions and initiatives were influential and the difficulty to generalise, and that discussion on social media tends to be self-aggrandising rather than an accurate picture of food waste patterns. Thus, while societal discourse is a significant means for understanding the social reaction of people in public spaces, it does not speak to what they actually do in practice.

3.4. Reflections from the Literature

A key problem of food waste testimonials is that they rely on the objectivity of the consumer. Study biases are reflected in their conclusions; volunteers who broadly underestimate or miscalculate their amount of food waste are also likely to underestimate their own role in food waste, to displace blame away from themselves, and on to supermarket offers [ 59 , 66 ]. Considering these biases, most quantitative studies situate their analysis in the place of purchase. They anticipate that food will be wasted before it has even left the supermarket. Therefore, waste is often treated as if it is a choice, based on sound economic decision making. From studying human–food interactions, scholars suggest this is overly simplistic and, in effect, ‘blaming the consumer’ for the environmental burden associated with food waste [ 9 ].

With regard to human–food interaction, scholars suggest that eating practices are related to a complex set of irrational behaviours and drivers [ 23 ]. Conscious actions that lead to waste reduction are ‘seldom socially oriented, seldom exposed to peer pressure and very reliant on purely ‘altruistic’ attitudes’ [ 67 ]. The most significant mitigating factors are heterogenous and implicit within habitual activities. The motivations for such are not necessarily associated with waste prevention and, therefore, are not easily identified by participants without extended observation [ 68 ]. The future of food waste prevention must, therefore, address ‘a web of interlinked practices making up the everyday life activities, infrastructures and meanings of consumers’ [ 30 ].

Sociologists Delormier et al. [ 31 ] take inspiration from Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory; considering how consumption practices are an interplay between human agency and social structure. Consumption is understood according to ‘the social and material contexts through which practices are ordered and (re)produced’ [ 9 ] (p. 430). The potential for such an approach is echoed in studies that deal with both group practices and personal testimonies [ 52 , 58 ]. This sociological perspective could potentially allow research to analyse the interplay between these rival understandings and, combined with the correct methodological tools, could vastly further the understanding of a notoriously ‘invisible’ social phenomenon [ 69 ].

It appears that there is a willingness among actors to reduce their environmental impact, including through the mitigation of food waste; however, the question becomes the following: what can initiatives do beyond educating consumers and shifting purchasing practices alone? Efforts of supermarket chains and media campaigns have often proven to be insufficient for lasting change and, in certain cases, to have ulterior motivations. Previous studies have indicated that embedded routines are paramount and that while consumer motivations exist, they are rarely effective and are often confused and or contradictory. By incorporating the desire to do more into everyday practice, routine and even culture, how can action and responsibility of wasting food be re-positioned to where it occurs, in the home? Following this, hopefully some of the confusion surrounding food waste can be alleviated and consumer behaviour identified as part of a broader environmental-systemic change, rather than the driving force behind the culture of waste [ 7 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 70 ].

4. Technology Probes

The technology probe has emerged from human computer interaction (HCI) studies, a disciplinary intersection between engineering, social and computer sciences, which rose to prominence along with personal computing in the 1980s. The approach was first popularised by Hutchinson et al. [ 18 ] (p.18). They define a probe as ‘ an instrument that is deployed to find out about the unknown-to hopefully return with useful or interesting data ’. Inspired by Gaver et al. [ 71 ]’s cultural probe, they take a situationist approach to research, provoking a reaction from their participants. The technology probe is intended to extend this through longitudinal data collection, an extended intervention in the day to day lives of users. As a methodology, this involves research participants in the process of formulating and developing a potential product that serves a purpose for their use, while simultaneously leading to novel findings. From its origins, this is an interdisciplinary means for data collection, attempting to answer a real-world question in a real-world setting.

The societal context in which the technology probe is embedded must be defined and understood, with clear relevance to the question at hand. The probe must be simplistic in design, with as few functions as possible and a high degree of usability. It must be engineered such that the functionality is smooth in the field and that it serves a purpose to the user. It is also fundamental, however, that the study remains open-ended, reflexive and adaptive. It is often encouraged that participants engage with the probe as they see fit, fostering creativity and leading to insights for new technology design. To maintain the marriage of quantitative probe data with qualitative user/designer input, the study must be fluid to developments over time.

Since their inception, technology probes have been used to tackle interfaces between societal demands, individuals and designers. Technology probes reject the assumption that interventions must gather only unbiased ethnographic data; by serving a purpose to the user, it must alter the context in which it is used. Technology probes are, thus, especially useful for learning about changes in human behaviour, or how to develop a technology that yields favourable behaviours. Edwards, McDonald and Zhao [ 72 ] conceived a probe that encouraged healthy activity and exercise among teenagers. Through collecting quantitative data counting steps and calories, combined with a series of workshops generating rich qualitative insights, it was found that the device not only led to increased exercise among adopters, but also gave users a feeling of empowerment and control over their physical health. The probes they designed have since become ubiquitous among consumers.

More recently, technology probes along with commercial devices are becoming key tools to overcome personal inertia and enforce a stricter regime of so-called sustainable behaviour. For domestic consumers, the leading strategy for ‘doing one’s bit’ is a practice of self-regulation and social pressure. Smart-home tech and appliances are increasingly becoming part of everyday lives, capturing, manifesting and reporting data in order to help people make sense of their behaviour. There is some contention, however, as to whether this pathway is the most effective in generating a greener future [ 9 , 21 , 73 , 74 , 75 ]. First, by focusing on the individual rather than the collective, the responsibility for societal, government and corporate action is undermined. The potential for significant and lasting change, and the greatest portion of greenhouse gas omission, is currently performed at a government policy level [ 9 , 75 ].

Second, individual contribution is often divisive across the social demographic. Users are considered wholly rational, economically driven subjects [ 73 ]. In such cases, practices of consumption considered ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ can be inaccessible to those excluded due to issues of class, race or gender, and often act in aversion to existing cultural traditions [ 21 , 75 ]. As Kwon [ 76 ] reveals, data recorded via a ‘shower probe’ can reveal intimate, personal information and lead to a more fruitful discussion on water consumption. Technology probes can lead to a deeper human connection to both the problem at hand and other participants. The operationalisation of intimate data, therefore, can potentially be extrapolated across broader swathes of society, assuage group divisions and foster political mobilisation for collective change [ 73 ].

Following Delormier [ 31 ], this study moves away from the analysis of consumer behaviour in individual and isolated cases, toward treating food consumption and waste as a social practice. The technology probe is proposed as an ideal methodology for both better understanding and indicating appropriate strategies for the problem of food waste that build on the smart-home, recording quantitative waste data, making visible wasting practices and situating them within a social context through rich discussion and participant input.

5. Methodology

The design of the smart bin is shown in Figure 2 . It is a compost caddy equipped with a set of weighing scales and a camera, attached to a Raspberry Pi computer. Images and weight data are recorded of participant food waste, taking a measurement every time the bin lid is opened. The aim was to collect data about consumers in the home, to learn about food waste and wasting behaviours, and to understand how users interact with a smart compost bin to uncover the ‘invisible’ aspects of food waste. Meanwhile, inspired by the growing prevalence of smart devices for data collection and user reflection, the smart bin was evaluated as a domestic product, identifying potential improvements. Finally, this was used as inspiration to consider future use-cases, design opportunities and experiments to be undertaken.

The smart bin. The smart bin is comprised of a 4-liter caddy with dimensions 23.5 × 19.7 × 16.1 cm. In the lid is a light bar (1) and a motion sensitive camera (2), that when the lid is lifted is programmed to take 6 photos. These are wired to a mains-powered, Raspberry Pi single board computer (3). This is connected to the household Wi-Fi and data is recorded remotely. Finally, the Raspberry Pi signals a set of weighing scales (4) to record the weight of the bin each time the lid is opened.

The bin was designed with the aim of connecting domestic consumers with researchers and other stakeholders with a vested interest in food waste data, be it consumers themselves, local municipalities or food technologists. Thus, both the usability of the probe and the usefulness of the data collected in the experiment were considered. It is important to note that the purpose of the probe is not to make conclusions about the artefact of food waste based on a representative population, but to motivate this study as the first step in formulating a future appliance. It is the type and variety of data that the bins collects and how this speaks to human behaviour which is of interest, rather than ‘what’ food waste is placed in the bin. Thus, the smart bin was evaluated with the participants most available to the first author during the time of study, a snowball sampling of households in the county of Dorset, UK. This was effective in showing that even in a relatively homogenous and accessible sample, the richness and breadth of data collected is significant and, considering that the point of analysis is the interaction with the probe, is a sufficient group to reflect upon its culture of use [ 77 ].

Participants for the experiment were those in the sample area that prepare and consume food at home, which must then dispose of waste material, and perhaps had a compost bin of their own or, as is now common throughout the UK, a biodegradable waste collection service that demands they separate food waste from other waste. Therefore, the catchment for potential participants was extremely broad, with most households fitting this criteria, and that participation in the initial phase of the experiment was relatively passive, as they simply replaced their existing caddy with the smart bin. This preliminary study included 10 households and 19 individuals were interviewed between April and December 2020. A full description of participant households is given in Table 1 .

Descriptive statistics.

Participants were given the bin for a period of two weeks. The first author then remotely transferred and manually coded the pictures and weights, importing information into Excel. Using R data processing software, an html was generated to be shared with the participants to give feedback on their performance in the experiment. This was designed to envisage what a digital interface for a future commercial version of the smart bin might look like. This then became the basis for an interview in which households were asked to describe their consumption patterns, trying to understand how this reflected their interaction with the probe.

Household members participated in the interview voluntarily and not all chose to do so. Interviews lasted between 30 and 60 min. During the first half, the participant reflected on their week of observation. Participants had been asked to interact with the bin as they normally would do their compost caddy. Participants were, thus, asked to reflect on this, any notable experiences or feelings. The key differences reported were that the bin required a power source, so in some cases, it had to be placed in a different position as their usual bin, and that participants had to use biodegradable plastic waste bags, which some did not like.

The feedback html was given to the participant in advance of the interview. It included the accepted definition of waste (avoidable and unavoidable) and three visualisations; the first tracking consumption across time, the second showing the most frequently wasted products and the third revealing the financial and carbon cost of avoidable food waste. The figures were interactive so the participants could hover their cursor over each point to view their wasted items. When observing these graphs, participants were asked to ‘fill in the gaps’, giving context and to describe how reflecting on the data made them feel. This half of the interview was participant led; individuals were frequently keen to challenge the results, explain away their guilt or to explore their own habits in the context of others.

The second half was made up of semi-structured questions, designed with insights from the literature review and the following key areas identified by Schanes et al. [ 1 ]: planning, shopping, storing, cooking, eating, and managing leftovers. These questions were aimed at assisting the participant in explaining and understanding their habits. While the previous section was emotionally provocative, these questions generated greater rationale in explaining contexts, leading participants to discuss their culture, familial history, and future ambitions.

Transcripts of these interviews were coded using NVivo. A thematic analysis was conducted to reduce the dimensionality of the data [ 78 ]. Following Boyatzis [ 79 ] (p. 161), a broad range of codes were identified “that at minimum describes and organises the possible observations and at maximum interprets aspects of the phenomenon”. The coding pursued a hybrid approach, first employing inductive reasoning and developing data driven codes, then using existing theory, aggregating key umbrella codes; identities, emotions, practices, contexts, social habitus and knowledges [ 80 ]. This methodology allowed for a clear comparison between the raw qualitative data, literary insights and evidence provided by the smart bin.

The results are broken down into quantitative findings, evidencing the potential insight to be gained from the raw data produced with the bin, and then the themes arising from the interviews, using the bin data as an instrument for enriched discussion. The quantitative data is intended to demonstrate the applicability of the bin as a tool for data collection, in particular the breadth and granularity of information. The qualitative section first reveals the bin as a means for personal reflection and how the participants react to their behaviour being recorded; and second, as a situated device influencing peoples’ practices and leading to new strategies on how to prevent waste.

6.1. Quantitative; Making Food Waste Visible

Here, some of the most confounding and poorly understood questions within food waste literature were considered. The sections above have evidenced that a wide number of cases have been identified for manifesting people’s behaviour about food waste, yet little can be reliably said about what goes on inside the home. The bin presents a series of novel findings that speak to the root of these questions, making visible the action of food waste accurately and without significant bias.

6.1.1. Waste Variability Inter and Intra Households

The bin demonstrated a rich variation in wasting patterns between households and across time. The quantitative results and sample description are summarised in Table 1 . It shows the demographic of adults and children, the total number of times the bin was visited during the study period and the number of different items deposited. Each has a broad range, and the number of bin instances would appear to increase with more residents. As might be expected, it is indicated that more people will waste more things.

Next is the proportion of avoidable and unknown items. Avoidable items are defined according to the wrap definition above. The proportion of avoidable items wasted ranges quite significantly from 7 to 40%. There is no obvious connection between this and household size here, suggesting that perhaps while total waste could be linked to household size, avoidable waste may be down to individual behaviours or other more complex dynamics working within the household.

Metrics according to weight support this; total weight ranges from less than 300 g to almost 7000 g across households, consistent with household size. Proportion of avoidable waste weight ranges from 17 to 67%, with the average proportion of total weight being 29%. In households 6–10, avoidable waste is a significant proportion of their total waste, whereas in 1–5, it is less so. The latter groups are overall larger households while the prior are smaller, with the exception of household 7, which has young children. This would suggest that while larger households produce more waste overall, they are more efficient in minimising avoidable waste.

The cost of food emphasises this point, revealing a further disjuncture between items, weights and individuals. The UK national average of avoidable food waste per week as of 2018 was 1330 g at GBP 4.04 per capita and 3170 g at GBP 9.62 per household [ 81 ]. However, this sample is considerably lower than their estimates according to weight, with costs ranging from GBP 2.80 to GBP 14.26; 6 and 9 produce significantly greater costs. Initial patterns indicate that while the single household with children has significantly more avoidable waste, the financial value of that waste is much lower than in the homes of just two adults. Equally, larger households, with greater amounts of total waste, proportionately produce much lower waste in terms of monetary value.

The final column shows unknown items, which do not necessarily speak to the variety in the data; however, they do show the limits of the bin and a reflection on the reliability of data collection in each household; the lower the percentage, the greater the certainty. These occurred when images were unidentifiable by the author, when the bin was too full, condensation formed on the lens due to hot items, such as tea bags, the light on the camera stopped functioning or if the bin was not plugged in, as observed in the selection of photos at the top of Figure 2 . Other unreliable features include maintaining the accuracy of scales and tracking their calibration over time. There are significant points to be made regarding consumer behaviour between households according to these data; however, future experiments could benefit from a longer period of observation, accounting for ‘one-off’ expensive waste items that skew the results, and a broader sample size, including more houses with children.

Having shown the aggregated data, Figure 3 demonstrates the full spread and detail of the data for a single household throughout the experiment. The graph in the centre is an example of what each household would receive in their feedback sheet. The x axis shows time, and y axis is weight of waste in the bin. Going from left to right, the blue line increases as the participants add items to the bin. Black dots and red crosses indicate instances of unavoidable and avoidable waste.

Household 3’s weight of food waste over time and photographic data.

Among the avoidable items were mushrooms, bread and oranges, as shown in the pictures below. The pictures are examples of the raw data; however, participants were only provided with the item description, time stamp and weight. The left and right images show ideal cases where items are introduced to an empty bin, whereas the central bread image shows how items may become mixed and difficult to identify. While the bin does not reveal who is exactly responsible for the waste, it does show when, what and how much was wasted.

Given this information, patterns can begin to be identified in the data. Each peak indicates the bin slowly being filled by participants, followed by sharp troughs as the bin is emptied and the weight returns to zero. The first peak climbs to 1000 g of waste over more than a day and is then emptied. Immediately after, in stark contrast, the bin is filled to nearly double that weight and emptied again in only a few hours. The bin then resumes a steady increase in weight, reaching a larger peak weight with fewer avoidable items. The red highlighted sections indicate a discrepancy between the two apparent patterns emerging from the data including shorter, more frequently emptied bins, with greater avoidable items and less frequent, heavier bin loads with fewer avoidable items. Figure 3 does not contain error bars, nor does it attempt to compare or draw averages between the households due to the limited size of the sample. It does, however, reveal intricate arrangements that can be extrapolated to make conclusions both for researcher and user; for example, as was common across the households, the bin was not empty for long, and was seemingly only emptied when there was a need to make space for more waste.

These patterns are further explored in Figure 4 , selecting households 1, 4 and 9 to reveal the observable differences and similarities between them. Each household routine is unique, and their regularity reflects their configuration. Household 1 has five persons, resulting in quick filling and emptying of the bin, five times over two weeks. Household 4 with two persons fills the bin three times, at a much lower amount but with similarly uniform peaks and troughs. Household 9 seems to use the bin regularly for one week, then sporadically around that. The bin is filled and emptied systematically, at similar weights and intervals. Avoidable items, however, are irregular, sometimes together and in small amounts; at others, infrequent and large, irrespective of other factors. Intra and inter household variation in wasting is significant, revealing a consistency in overall weight but disorder among avoidable items. While this speaks to the granularity of household practices and human behaviour, as of yet, little can be said about mitigating avoidable waste, not revealing any specific rationale with the data.

Waste over time from households 1, 4 and 9.

6.1.2. What Households Waste

The bin reveals a range of waste products; however, the sample is significantly skewed toward a small number of them. Figure 5 shows the accumulated weights of all the items across the sample. The most wasted items by weight were tea bags, followed by coffee and leftovers. This is unsurprising as tea and coffee necessarily produce waste, and the by-products are rarely consumed in the current sample. Their waste produced is presumed to be directly related to the amount of tea or coffee consumed, unlike leftovers or other avoidable wastes that can be more easily assigned to human mismanagement. It is expected that these items may also be biased by the sample context, being rural UK households, and that these items may be different in a different area. Equally, the level of balance in diet may be greater or lesser depending on cultural or ecological context. Tea and coffee are also frequently disposed of directly from a liquid, having been brewed in hot water, which adds considerable weight to the product.

Total weight of each item.

Again, there is little consistency in avoidable items. The majority of weight from certain items may be attributed to certain households. Figure 6 disaggregates item weight by household and indicates which were avoidable or unavoidable. Each household would have observed a similar visualisation as part of their feedback sheet. Households 6, 7 and 8 have leftovers, oranges and bananas as their topmost wasted items, and in each case, a significant portion of their top items were avoidable. Household 7 is the only house in the sample with young children, confirming the struggles to mitigate waste noted by parents in previous literature. Equally, households 1, 2 and 3 seem to account for most of the tea and coffee. Excluding household 8, these had the greatest number of residents. These households were included here to demonstrate the diversity between them and the items used, whereas households 4, 5, 9 and 10 were even more highly skewed. These graphs have evidenced the range of products in the sample, revealing a high level of bias that might be better addressed in future studies by approaching different geographies, climates and social groups, which might vary in products accordingly.

Top 10 items by households.

6.1.3. Amount of Household Waste

As observed above, houses waste different items in varying amounts; however, there is also a discrepancy in the rate of wasting, with some households wasting little and often, and others infrequently and in large quantities. Figure 7 displays the range and then compares the grams per instance between bin visits across households. The box and whisker plot shows the median, interquartile range and anomalous values for each household for the weight of items. Household 7 is among those with the fewest instances of wasting, yet they are among the greatest in increase in weight. The opposite is true for houses 1, 2 and 3. Household size might be associated to how and when the waste is thrown; for example, houses of 4 to 5 adults seem to be more regular, whereas the range in households of fewer people is much greater. Equally, anomalous values are greater in smaller households, perhaps reflecting a lack of flexibility. In contrast, letters accompanying each box indicate a significant level of difference between certain households, and similarity among others, according to an analysis of variance. Houses 1, 2, 5 and 6 (bc), 3 and 8 (b), can be grouped apart from the others, revealing a similar distribution of grams per instance, and that other patterns can be extrapolated that do not have an obvious connection to size, items or weight. Frequency and weights per bin visits are evidently complex and varied between households.

Grams per instance of waste disposed between households.

Equally, items are wasted in different amounts and frequencies. Figure 8 shows the grams per visit disaggregated by item and food group. The single largest bin visit throughout the sample was for leftovers. In combination with Figure 7 , this can be attributed to household 9. The next largest bin visit was for oranges and bananas. They also had the largest range. These were largely from household 7. In combination with Figure 5 , there is a clear difference between the accumulated and separated weights among the most popular items, with tea bags, vegetable choppings and coffee being deposited little and often, as might be expected. Around half of the items were only wasted once. The least change in weight was unsurprising, coming from very insignificant items, such as sink waste, coriander and cheese rinds. By triangulating these data, outliers and non-normal distributions that could be easily misreported or underrepresented in a questionnaire can be accounted for. While the smart bin has only begun to scratch the surface, it has revealed a high variation in how much households waste of different items, which demands further explanation.

Rate of change in weight by item.

6.1.4. When Households Waste

Households waste things at different times, with little comparability within the sample. There is an observable difference according to the total weight and time of day between households, as shown in Figure 9 . Time of day is defined as morning (5:00–12:00), afternoon (12:00–18:00), evening (18:00–21:00) and night (21:00–5:00). These periods were chosen to encapsulate mealtimes and the range of times at which people in the sample would eat, including morning breakfast, afternoon lunch and evening dinner. Excluding perhaps household 3, each household seems to favour one time of day above others for using the bin. While some are quite balanced in this regard (1, 2, 5, 7), others are significantly skewed (6, 8, 9, 10). Overall, there seems to be little coherence between households, with a wide diversity across the sample.

Total weight of waste and time of day across households.

Items are wasted at different, unexpected times, as the same comparison is made between some the most wasted products in Figure 10 . These were coffee (spent grounds), leftovers (uneaten, cooked food), tea bags and vegetable choppings (inedible parts of common household vegetables, including onions). Certain items here have a conventional or assumed period of consumption. For example, stimulant drinks, such as tea or coffee, might be expected to be utilised in the morning, yet they are spread across the day, with the majority of tea being wasted after 21:00. Leftovers are mostly in the morning, perhaps suggesting that breakfast is the most wasted meal. Vegetable choppings are mostly at night, corresponding to cooking for an evening meal, perhaps disposed of after eating. In any case, there seems to be little coherence between products, again with a wide diversity across the sample.

Total weight of selected waste items and time of day.

6.2. Qualitative Analysis; Realising Behaviours

The quantitative results have shown that the bin as a data collection device can overcome many of the barriers experienced in food waste behaviour studies (expense, confirmation bias) and reveal new insights. This section demonstrates how when confronted with quantitative evidence of their food wasting behaviour, certain themes would arise that the participants were not fully aware of, leading to unexpected explanations and reactions.

6.2.1. Routines and Identities

The most prominent themes were routines and identities. These were both unique to certain households or individuals, or generalisable across the sample. Furthermore, these findings reflected much of the preceding qualitative literature. The routines and habits as described by each household included tea bags in the morning, as part of the process of waking up, or unfinished cucumber and the ends of a loaf of bread, discarded as surplus between shopping visits. Queries from the raw data, for example, why coffee and tea, which presumably are consumed more in the morning, were found to be wasted late in the evening, was explained as that is when the ‘big wash’ happens, or when the coffee machine or teapot is emptied after a day of use. Equally, a wide variety of reasons were given for why different households emptied the bin at different times and rates, for example, to pre-empt the bin beginning to omit an odour, some had different perspectives on when it was full, some emptied the bin because they were intending to be away for a night, others forgot and lamented their lack of foresight. Much of the study was undertaken during the summer months, and participants often described this as a factor in why they emptied the bin at certain times.

Figure 3 of household 3 was a particularly good example of this. It was discovered that the three large peaks, highlighted in red, correlated with the absence of one household member known for their vigilant cleanliness. That member had been away during the highlighted times and had returned to cook frequently between them. The bin is emptied with greater frequency and regularity, at lower weights and with more avoidable items, as the member proceeded to clean the fridge of neglected contents. This revelation proved a rich point of discussion and reflection and led to the household member being congratulated on their raising of the standard in household hygiene in the following ways:

[A] “I’m just chucking out all the… mouldy [stuff]” [B] “A is such a good cleaner” [C] ”Yeah, well-done A.” Household 3

Not only does one member adopt a particular identity, acknowledged by themselves and the rest of the household as a vigilant cleaner, they are also enabling other members to perform better practices. Whilst their actions are leading to greater waste, through the bin, they are making visible that which would have been forgotten. Furthermore, that same member held the most concrete ideals on the cost of food waste. Other members experienced shame and regret for their waste but did not connect their feelings with the same practical economics.

Other routines emerged, such as those related to sleep; certain individuals explained late night bin visits and particularly tea drinking as a remedy for insomnia. Seasonal routines also were claimed to be determined by the onset of the summer season, not only as diet and tastes change but also a large portion of the sample grew their own food, and thus experienced food gluts and excess waste. Shopping and storage were considered large deciders of waste, with certain houses adopting systems to keep note of what they have and what they need. Routines were equally broken, significantly due to the COVID-19 lockdown, where participants found themselves at home during the week, where they would usually be away at work. This led to extravagant weekday lunch times, cooking and shopping to combat boredom.

Other identities noted in the study include providers (those who overcompensate food for guests), enablers (individuals with an ideological conviction or skillset that would aid and influence others in waste prevention), bin-pickers (those who refuse to waste anything, even eating from the bin), or roles such as that of working parents and children. Some of these identities can be found in the literature [ 1 , 32 , 53 , 82 ], while others emerged from this study. Examples include household 1, where the mother claims to experience recurring nightmares about running out of food (“ it’s always Christmas… and all these people are there… and I’m supposed to be cooking for them but I haven’t got the right food ”), household 5, where the sole occupant went to great lengths to preserve vegetables she could not consume alone in one sitting (“ broccoli, which I really love, I put it in water in the fridge but… if I don’t eat it within 2 or 3 days, It probably has no food or nutritional value and it looks like it’s dead ”), and household 2, where the father voluntarily ate out of the bin (“ Dad picks things out of the bin ”).

6.2.2. Discrepancy between Responsibility, Reported Data and Explanation

While the bin data were able to reveal and cause participants to acknowledge routines and identities that they were not necessarily aware of or did not understand the relevance to food waste practices, there were also disagreements and discrepancies between the accounts participants gave and the evidence produced by the bin. Returning to Figure 3 and household 3, member A is explaining away their actions; however, he is also shifting the responsibility from himself as the disposer of waste to the other household members as those who wasted the food in A’s absence. This is demonstrative of the emotional dimension revealed by this graph and the complexity of ‘wasting’ as a social practice. Other households would blame different ‘wasteful’ generations or demographics culpable for the current culture. Across the sample, household members would frequently challenge the results, giving reasons why they were not responsible. Household 3, when challenged as to why they had wasted grapes, responded in the following manner:

“it must have been rotten… I’m not happy with that. I mean it’s all gone back into the ground basically, so it’s not wasted, it’s compost… Now that is nit-picking.” Household 4

Despite being presented with the accepted definition of waste, participants would challenge how their waste did not fall under the given categories. As in the quotation, this could be because compost is envisioned as an equally valued use for food as consumption, others include that the food was grown themselves, that insects had eaten the food, that supermarkets had provided poor quality products, poor control of portion sizes or even simply the waste was unavoidable because the item did not suit their preferences. In this example, it shows that the definition of avoidable waste is not singular, that individuals have a different perspective of waste depending on context and access to resources, and that when presented with these data, participants seem to be more prone to stick to their personal convictions rather than take responsibility for their waste. The probe here reveals participants’ practices back to them in a way they did not expect, clearly provoking an emotional reflex that in some cases dislocates the rationality of the issue. In the following quotation, the participant describes how they grew afraid of the bin:

“the sin bin, yeah, just it made me think oh god on what am I chucking away” Household 7

There were moments where the bin itself became the agent that defined what was unacceptable waste, causing the user anxiety as to what they could and could not waste. Participants admitted to accidentally throwing waste in the wrong bin, then moving it for the sake of the experiment. Others would joke that they would have put avoidable food waste in another bin to not be criticised. Often participants were aware of when they were disposing something that might be considered improper, despite all of them saying the bin was passive and fit into everyday life as a normal compost bin. The bin data are divisive, provoking both conformism, causing users to change their habits to minimise waste, and dissent, users refusing to believe the definition is representative of their actions. This seems to further elude to the question of ‘where the responsibility lies’ in food waste, highlighting the discrepancy between different understandings; however, it is clear that in the research process, the probe has a direct impact on the user and their experience of waste.

6.3. Qualitative; Provoking Change

The purpose of this section is to show how the technology probe as a research instrument and intervention technology, used in combination with a qualitative discussion, can instigate change in users, revealing how they respond to being measured and resultant actions on waste, and indicating possible areas for design.

6.3.1. Reflexivity

Reflexivity, here defined as the examinations of one’s own beliefs, judgements and practices, began to emerge as the discussion wore on. Significantly, this seemed to be encouraged as the data became more tangible and contextual framing. As Figure 9 and Figure 10 begin to aggregate waste and formulate a perspective, it became more difficult for participants to dispute the evidence, as was provoked by the singular instances of waste, considered in isolation, as shown in Figure 3 .

Individuals would focus on the definition, taking the discussion forward. Whilst in many cases the question of ‘waste as want’ might be considered a choice, some participants were aware of their situation, residing in a privileged area of the UK without having to worry about where the next meal comes from. Participants would empathise with those less fortunate than themselves, sometimes in extreme circumstances, and consider how their casual waste might be perceived by someone in poverty. This was particularly prominent in mixed heritage households, where different experiences led to different understandings on how to determine and avoid waste. For example, household 4 were of Malaysian and British descent. They were able to draw on the different stories they heard or experienced growing up and empathise with each other, synthesising a perspective on waste cognizant of a much broader understanding of privilege and access than other households.

“[coming from Malaysia…] I am driven by the idea of not to waste… food like everything else in the world is finite. And the less you waste… the more there is available to everyone. we hope.” Household 4

These reflexive moments were embedded with emotional experiences, contextualising the more legible data points of financial and environmental cost with how it made them feel, prompting them to explain their actions and motivations further.

“Yeah. It just feels so wrong… it just feels that it’s a kind of reflection of your lack of organization” Household 3

The quotation shows a strong reaction from the participant; despite their waste being minimal in comparison to the UK average, the presentation of the data is influential. In comparison to the earlier visualisations, this table puts the waste in less abstract terms, causing critical self-reflection. The process of the interview seemed to draw participants in, pausing at each stage to reflect.

“I felt the shame when I put the [oranges] in… I was like these have sat in there no one is eating them. What can I do… Think of the air miles.” Household 3

In the quotation from Household 3, the individual explains their experience of wasting, their confusion about how to prevent or repurpose the waste and their awareness of the environmental repercussions. This stage of the interview began to reveal both a connection between individuals, their actions and the impact, and a dependency between household members to coordinate sustainable practice; most participants were no longer rejecting the accusation of waste but searching for potential means to change their habits. This was significant as certain items were wasted multiple times, as household 8 reflects in the following manner:

“I’m not buying any more oranges. It’s not me. It’s the kids. Honestly… They’re like, ‘Oh, I really want these’… And so I buy them. And then they don’t get eaten because on Monday nights they have clubs, they have after school activities on Tuesday nights. They have after school activities on Thursday night… so they just genuinely aren’t home to eat them. And then by the weekend, I’m so annoyed with the fact that they’ve been sitting here I chuck them out… I went through a stage of… blending them in a smoothie… and I’m just pouring smoothies away because I’m like ‘girls smoothies’ and they have two mouthfuls and then they’re like, ‘no’, and I just wasted 40 min prepping smoothies.” Household 8

In Household 8, a working mother is struggling to balance feeding her children healthy food, the demands of daily life and not generating excessive waste. Having disposed of almost 2 kgs of oranges over three bin visits, she describes how she is aware that this has been a problem for some time, and that attempts to mitigate this have been unfruitful. The quotation reflects the number of considerations and demands that lead to waste and the efforts of one individual doing their best to prevent it. In this case, the technology probe not only makes visible the action of food waste, it also reveals a contention between the routine and identity of motherhood, and the reflexive and emotional agency of the individual.

6.3.2. Contextualise and Strategize

As tensions arose between the participants’ understanding and practice of food waste, it did not necessarily incite despair among the participants, but instead caused them to contextualise why that waste occurred and, sometimes, to strategize as to how to overcome it. The same mother reflected on how her children would team up and distract her so that they could throw away their food without her noticing. In this case, the bin became a useful tool to monitor their consumption (it was a common surprise among households who would consider themselves non-wasters, then the bin would reveal how other household members had let them down). She also shared several methods on how to mitigate her waste, including a record of every food item stored in the fridge and freezer and how her partner and herself share cooking responsibilities.

“you are dealing with a north London Jewish boy, you do realise that don’t you. We don’t do things like that, the majority of rubbish is put in the black bag.” Household 9

Others would delve into why the issue did not occur to them before. In Household 9, a man describes how his urban upbringing in a Jewish family had not led him to be conscious of waste. He would later describe how increasing awareness of environmental issues had led him to change his behaviour to a certain degree but even when faced with the data, disposing of 1 kg of cooked leftovers in two bin visits, the amount seemed reasonable. Cultural background and past experiences proved significant for both increased and decreased waste, whether that be one-off, life changing occurrences or long-term education.

The statement also reflects how the culture of waste is understood. The guilt here is not that the food was not eaten but that it was put in a black bag instead of composted. This sentiment was shared by many and reveals how when asked about their food waste, a common understanding of the responsible consumer is not one who attempts to prevent waste, just one that puts the correct waste in the correct bin. This both shows the reach of the existing waste awareness campaigns and their limitations in getting to the root of the problem. Regardless, in some cases and in contrast to the literature, lifestyle choice and ideological conviction were strong indicators of low waste.

“well its £3.28 I shouldn’t be wasting… I felt completely ashamed… I can hear my parents saying there are people… in India starving … I think when you’re challenged on anything…, it makes you think, again, and probably, you know, a lot more deeply”. Household 5

In Household 5, the participant lived alone and was a keen environmentalist. Even the minimal waste she generated was enough to drive her to wish to change. She also admits that the bin brought forth feelings of nostalgia and guilt, and that it had made her think more deeply about her waste. Concrete strategies that households mentioned they did or could do more of included managing the fridge, bringing old items to the front and looking in the fridge before shopping. This was devised in household 2 in response to their wasting of fresh broccoli and cucumber. Household 3 would practice incorporating old meals into the following days’ lunches. Several houses mentioned their confidence in ‘the smell test’. Household 8 mentioned preserving foods such as jams and chutneys and planned to do more in future. Household 7, alongside making waste smoothies and systematizing the fridge, was opting for abstinence.

“I just would stop [buying oranges]… that’s an obscene amount of oranges. Let’s not mess around here. We just won’t buy that many oranges.” Household 7

Evidently less effective mitigation strategies were shown by household 9, by ordering meals that have just the right ingredients to produce the accompanying recipe, and household 6 planning meals weeks in advance.

“So we’re even, at the moment… two or three weeks ahead… isn’t it? … we’ve got a chest freezer over there” Household 6

Despite these confident assertions, these two households wasted a significant amount of leftover food. In both cases, this was their most wasted item, leading both to significantly exceed the national average cost of avoidable food waste. Certain practices to mitigate food waste and routinised consumption are not conducive to a deeper understanding or responsibility; in some cases, these actions lead to ‘routinely’ wasting food. Even when someone says they are reducing waste, this does not mean they actually are. Once again, there is no clear answer for how to move forward with food waste mitigation; however, while the bin revealed tensions, there were instances where the combination of routine, identity, reflexivity and affect would indicate a more holistic approach.

Following the feedback sheet, the participants were asked how they would feel if their data were used as part of a social media application, where users would share and compete in their food waste, in a similar way to a sports app. This was considered a realistic extension of design and a necessary consideration as similar practices are already used in other behavioural change devices. Notably, many already viewed the experiment as a competition within the household and there were two key reactions. The first group feared an intrusive ‘big brother’ technology, preferring their privacy. Others found pride in their food waste, as demonstrated by the following statement:

“I would never be ashamed that I don’t feed enough veg” Household 1

While the information in the tables above might be compromising, revealing instances of food waste that did not fit the self-perception participants had as responsible consumers, some suggested they were keen to share their data in the study and via social media, if given the opportunity, as it reflected upon their pride in their diet. This is significant, as in Household 1, the idea of sharing food waste data appeals to the provider identity, outweighing values of frugality and responsible consumption. It shows that human behaviour is not rational, linear or predictable, and planned behaviour does not seem to change it. The smart bin not only connects waste with consumption, but it might also connect sustainable wasting and eating habits with the deciding factors of history, culture and values, demonstrated by the following statement:

“We eat the skins now because it became trendy, when we were kids people skinned potatoes, but it’s a different world. If I still had Dad’s potatoes, I would peel them and you’d never get the same again, the creaminess of them is just… [exclaims]… incomparable!” Household 1

The provider individual in Household 1 describes how changing pressures and social trends have influenced her consumption patterns. In her childhood, before consumption practices began to conform to environmentalism, they would always peel potatoes. As history has progressed this has changed; however, the enjoyment and value in food has not. These quotations demonstrate how culinary shifts are culturally determined and how they lead to changes in identity. The smart bin was able to provoke participants to contextualise their food waste data, while revealing their values. These are clearly interlinked and the bin has uncovered contextual information that offers a pathway for operationalising that relationship, and the certain positive values and sentiments associated with the action of wasting. Of course, there are contrarian or antagonistic instances, where values serve as a barrier to these suggestions (participants admitted to not owning a compost bin due to its untidiness); the solution seems to be in each of these constituent parts working in tandem, influencing and transforming each other. That is, identity and routine, reflexivity and agency working with the bin as a supportive technology might be a more fruitful strategy for avoiding waste.

‘It’s a salutary lesson, I should put it on the wall’ Household 5

Beyond strategies for mitigating waste, the participants began to think creatively about use cases and alternative opportunities for design. The quotation shows how the user found value in the data collected, particularly the visual component, and that they feel they should be constantly reminded of their waste by projecting it on their wall. Other suggestions included receiving different photos each day, making connections with different practices more apparent, and fostering a stronger affective engagement through the food they had most recently enjoyed. Some maintained diaries voluntarily, asked for buttons or a voice function to maintain a consistent qualitative engagement, where users could describe their food and reason why it was being thrown away as the experiment progressed, rather than feel judgement from the device at the end. This fed into how users reflected on the purpose of their data; one participant asserted that if they had paid for the bin as something to collect data for their own benefit, their attitude might be different; however, their judgement by human researchers was not considered to have the same value. Thus, the commercial and use value seemed more apparent to participants than insights for research. The smart bin was viewed as a potential service for businesses to minimise their waste or akin to existing technologies, such as domestic smart meters, which monitor energy consumption.

7. Discussion and Concluding Remarks

Considering the pitfalls of preceding food waste analyses, the evidence presented here shows promise for crossing disciplines and methodological gaps. Where personal testimonials are self-reported and voluntary, the smart bin offers an objective means of measuring food waste, one that according to participants is enticing enough so they do not attempt to cheat, while also sufficiently passive that usage requires little extra effort. Where household studies have had no means of quantification and have experienced participants changing their behaviour to appear favourable in the eyes of the researcher, the smart bin provides evidence of consumption behaviour, in some instances undermining or revealing new insights into household practices unknown to residents [ 12 , 25 , 35 , 48 ].

This preliminary study has revealed a significant variety in food waste data, including in rate, weight, time, food items and avoidability, both within and between households; where patterns emerge, there are also disruptions and randomness. Whilst this is an insignificant sample size to form lasting conclusions about the social dilemma of food waste, when combining the smart bin data with the participant accounts of waste, notable instances arise of food waste as a social practice [ 31 ]. Routines and identities emerge, which seem to shape participant wasting patterns and food relationships; participants explain and defend their behaviour, as indicated by the smart bin, according to them.

There are also practical implications for mitigation initiatives, for example, the majority of waste weight being limited to a few products is potentially advantageous, allowing a focus on these key areas. A total of 90% of the items fall outside of this top group. This speaks to what people did not throw away and different ways people use the bin. Furthermore, for products that are packaged, such as yogurt, consumers may not invest the extra effort to remove the contents to compost it. Whilst these kind of assumptions cannot be fully accounted for, it is hoped that this might be included in a future iteration of this study, recording food products going into the home to understand in greater detail what people do and do not choose to throw in the compost. Combining these insights might lead to targeted interventions; leftovers are among the highest items wasted, so focusing on reducing them would make a greater impact to the sample than on other products.

When presented with the aggregated data, framed in such a way that it contextualises the information in its financial and environmental consequences, it reveals a conflict with the participant’s personal agency and desire to mitigate waste. Food waste here becomes an interplay between social and material ordering of practices; how personal agency and social structure conform to provoke a situated understanding of food waste according to an entanglement of contextualised values and resources. Therefore, the bin is seemingly able to situate considerations of food waste within the lives of users, building on culture and identity to instigate behavioural change rather than economic reasoning alone [ 8 ]. Future interventions might then move away from ‘blaming the consumer’ and develop appropriate food waste strategies according to consumer values.

This might be supported by the triangulation of insights from the literature, interview data and numerical records of consumption. For example, some of the key aggregates developed during the qualitative analysis were reflected upon, including identities, emotions and practices. The exploratory analysis suggested that identities of the provider, producer, saviour (bin picker) and (dis)enabler indicate correlation with reduced waste, whereas children and working parents are the opposite. Emotions are generally all linked to reduced waste, excluding guilt, which by a small margin was associated to increased waste. Practices mostly suggest less waste, whereas responsibilisation was with greater waste.

The engineering of the bin manages to seamlessly reposition the action of waste into the home alongside consumption, making visible the action of food waste and serving a purpose to users. Whilst some participants described their awareness of being ‘under surveillance’, actual interaction was relatively passive, simply mimicking the traditional compost bin. However, when these came together as a smart device, relaying that information to the user, the bin provoked a strong reaction, as is intended in the approach. Participants experienced shame and anger at the information they had previously unaccounted for, but also pride in what they considered a success (lots of green waste), often leading to a shared agreement and understanding of waste practices.

The data yielded are also considered as significant for providing a window into the home, different wasting patterns and attached consumer values. These may only become evident when aggregated or explored over time, for example, some participants would claim they had no routine, once referred to as ‘ready-steady-cook every night’; however, it was rarely recognised that this in and of itself was a routine. While this cannot be fully realised within the scope of this article, it could be suggested that those without a conscious routine are much more flexible to the need or desire to change their consumption. Those households that demonstrated strict indicators of routine (planned meals) would report greater waste as a break in their routine, either to follow a new diet, to order a takeaway or just daily pressure, and would result in a food glut, without the means to accommodate it. This speaks to both the potential to track and understand patterns and the future design of such a product.

As computing technologies grow increasingly inexpensive and as smart devices become embedded in all aspects of daily life, it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to envisage the smart bin as a domestic product. In combination with a more qualitative engagement, as requested by users and perhaps facilitated through a smart-phone app or website, the technology may aid in easing the burden of food waste, meeting consumers with possible recipes to prevent that waste from occurring again or even connecting users with channels for repurposing that food, as in the now popular application Olio. Furthermore, if these technologies were adopted on a large scale, this growing data pool could provide the basis for big data analytics, learning certain behaviours and accurately predicting the most appropriate mitigation strategy, according to a high granularity of contextual factors.

As is traditionally the case with such devices, the greatest share of the value can be found higher up the ladder; in this case, beyond consumers and researchers and into municipalities, governments and private organisations [ 83 ]. Municipalities may be able to adapt their system of refuse collection better according to these data, predicting and pre-empting gluts in household waste to distribute labour and resources more efficiently [ 84 ]. Governments may be able to measure the impact of policy interventions, and to strategise accordingly [ 85 ]. Supermarkets and food technologists can learn about their products, how popular they are, and if they are spoiling too quickly [ 86 ]. Each of these potential uses, supported by and working in combination with a network of other smart devices, may help to build sustainable futures akin to the conceptions of a circular economy, in which highly granular processes are optimised to minimise losses and reincorporate any potential waste back into the system of value generation [ 87 ].

The next iteration of the smart bin might include a feedback system that speaks to participants, praising the proportion of not only appropriate, unavoidable waste but also healthy foods, penalising waste but understanding the values of hygiene and food provisioning while contextualising their data in familiar metrics. Table A1 is an example drawn from the user feedback sheet. It shows each avoidable item by weight, cost in British pounds sterling according to the own brand supermarket products and kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent released from household 3. Returning to Table 1 , they are significantly below the UK average in weight and cost; however, portraying the data in such a way was still highly provocative for the participants. It shows how seemingly insignificant waste, such as salad leaves or a small amount of leftovers, can over time accumulate, in this case to over a kilo of CO 2 equivalent for each item. While this was a limitation in the current design, future iterations may integrate with advances in artificial intelligence for identifying images of waste, streamlining data processing; the bin may allow this to be achieved seamlessly, at little effort.

A further limitation, as identified by this discrepancy with the national average, may reveal the extent to which users changed their behaviour in relation to the bin, and from that we can deduce that any future design of a smart bin cannot be relied upon to paint a full picture of food waste. How people use the bin is also problematic; different people have different ideas about what to put into a food waste bin depending on what purpose that waste has, be it personal compost or refuse collection. For example, some may not want coffee grounds in their compost due to acidity.

It must also be considered that the research was conducted during COVID-19 in the UK and, due to lockdown restrictions, consumption patterns might not be as they would in usual life. It was frequently reported that being at home had led to more cooking, larger meals, and greater experimentality in cooking, all indicators of increased waste. Now, in returning to ‘normal’ life, it is expected that this will be reduced, with the majority of participants leaving the house for work on weekdays, leading to a concentration of waste in mornings, evening and weekends.

This article has attempted to make clear the shortcomings of the experiment so that future designs may be able to learn from our insights, as is part of the technology probe approach. On the one hand, the limited sample size has prevented insights into food waste on a large scale, while on the other, it has revealed the great variety within this homogenous and small sample, emphasising how the technology probe speaks to the context of use. This does not undermine the many potential insights to be drawn from the smart bin as an instrument for research. Rather, it has hinted toward a space between the understanding of food waste practices that few previous studies have been able to approach. Drawing from this short exploration, the smart bin is beginning to scratch the surface of integrated consumer behaviour to figure out what actors are doing right, based on a broad spectrum of human attributes, including culture, context, knowledge and demographic, and to use that information to build personalised, data-driven interventions [ 20 ]. This literature review and preliminary study was intended to make a case for the technology probe and then inspire further use and exploration of such methods. It is, thus, its contribution to suggest a tool that builds on the trajectory of domestic smart devices to synthesise the previous understandings of food waste and to open-up the discussion on motivators and mitigators, in the hope of developing more effective research and technologies.

Household 3’s avoidable items over the entire experiment.

Funding Statement

The Author Eliot Jones-Garcia is supported by the Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Nottingham (UKRI Grant No. EP/S023305/1). This work was further supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers EP/M02315X/1 and EP/S023305/1] and the University of Nottingham Smart Products and Future Food Beacons of Excellence. The APC was funded by the UKRI.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: S.B. and M.F.; methodology: S.B., E.J.-G. and M.F.; software: E.J.-G.; validation: E.J.-G., S.B. and M.F.; formal analysis: E.J.-G.; investigation: E.J.-G.; resources: S.B. and M.F.; data curation: E.J.-G.; writing—original draft preparation: E.J.-G.; writing—review and editing: E.J.-G., S.B. and M.F.; visualization: E.J.-G.; supervision: S.B. and M.F.; project administration: S.B. and M.F.; funding acquisition: S.B. and M.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of University of Nottingham School of Computer Science (protocol code CS-2019-R22 and 6/12/2019).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The Global Benefits of Reducing Food Loss and Waste, and How to Do It

• Food Loss and Waste
• food security

One-third of all food produced globally by weight is lost or wasted between farm and fork — that's  more than 1 billion tonnes . Converted into calories, this equates to 24% of the world’s food supply going uneaten. At the same time,  1 in 10 people globally remain malnourished.

This scale of food loss and waste harms not only human health and nutrition but also economies and the environment. Wasted food takes a major financial toll, costing the global economy more than $1 trillion every year. It also fuels climate change, accounting for approximately 8%-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

And if current trends persist, food loss and waste will double by 2050.

Here, we delve into the scope of this challenge and the global benefits of reducing food loss and waste, as well as solutions at the individual, local and national levels.

What Causes Food Loss and Waste?

While food loss and food waste are often talked about together, these terms encompass different issues throughout the food system. Food loss refers to loss at or near the farm and in the supply chain, for example, during harvesting, storage or transport. Food waste occurs at the retail level, in hospitality and in households.

Food loss and waste are caused by a wide range of issues, from technological challenges to consumer behaviors. Some common drivers of food loss include:

• Inadequate technology : Poor infrastructure, such as roads that flood or are hard to travel consistently, can prevent food from making it from farm to table. Lack of cold storage is another major concern for ensuring food can arrive fresh to markets. Farmers may also struggle with inadequate equipment such as old or inefficient machinery that makes it difficult to harvest all of a crop.
• Suboptimal packaging : How foods are packaged can make a big difference in the length of time they stay safe to eat. Many people are justly concerned about the environmental impacts of excessive packaging, but it’s important to remember that correct packaging can help foods stay fresher for longer, thereby reducing spoilage and the associated  methane emissions  that result from wasted food. An underappreciated fact is that the environmental impact of wasted food is greater than that of packaging waste. So, while it’s important to limit this waste, it’s also important to use correct packaging to reduce food spoilage.

Some common reasons for food waste include:

• Poor food management : Examples include insufficient skills and knowledge among staff who prepare food, which can lead to unnecessary waste during cooking, and inflexible procurement requirements such as retailers only stocking perfect-looking produce or not accepting a farmer’s oversupply of crop. Food waste can also occur when retailers and food providers do not adequately forecast and plan for demand to meet supply (or vice versa).
• Consumer behaviors : Households account for the majority of food wasted at the consumer and retail level. This often results from a lack of awareness of the scale of the issue and insufficient education about how to properly use up and store food at home. Food waste also stems from  norms and attitudes  that say wasting food is normal, as well as concerns about possible risks of eating food past its sell-by or use-by date label.

There used to be a view that food waste, which happens at the consumer level, tended to be more of a developed country problem while food loss, which can arise from issues in farming and supply chains, was a greater problem in developing countries. But recent research has shown this isn’t true.

Work by the  UN Environment Programme  shows that food waste occurs at roughly the same level in middle-income countries as in high-income countries. Good-quality data is still limited, but there is a reasonable amount of information to back up this conclusion. Similarly, recent work by the  World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF)  concluded that food loss on farms is a problem in high-income countries as well as middle- and lower-income countries. These recent studies show that both issues must be addressed on a global scale.

The Global Benefits of Reducing Food Loss and Waste

The  UN’s Sustainable Development Goals  include a call to halve food waste and reduce food losses by 2030 for good reason. Reducing food loss and waste generates benefits for economies, for businesses and consumers, for human health and for the environment.

Improved global nutrition and food security

Reducing food loss and waste can play a big role in providing a healthy, nutritious diet to a growing global population. Not only does one third of all food produced by volume go uneaten, but perishable foods with higher nutritional value, such as fruit and vegetables, are particularly prone to loss and waste: More than 40% of produce by weight is lost or wasted worldwide each year. Ensuring more of the global food supply is used to feed people, rather than perishing or ending up in landfills, is an important strategy for addressing hunger in a world where hundreds of millions still face malnutrition.

Reduced greenhouse gas emissions

Project Drawdown  has listed reducing food loss and waste as the single-best strategy for reducing emissions and fighting the climate crisis. Because up to 10% of global emissions result from food loss and waste, it’s simply not possible to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal to stay within 1.5-2 degrees C (2.7-3.6 degrees F) of warming without tackling this issue.

Emissions from food loss and waste result from the energy and inputs used to produce food that’s ultimately not consumed, as well as the methane that’s emitted when food rots in fields or landfills. Although shorter lived than carbon dioxide, methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas with over  80 times the warming power  of CO2. By reducing food loss and waste, we avoid its associated planet-warming emissions.

Improving existing food systems  will also help the world feed more people without expanding cultivated areas. Agricultural expansion is a major driver of greenhouse gas emission s and often results in deforestation, which releases stored carbon dioxide and lowers the land’s carbon storage capacity. In addition, increasing the efficiency of food production could potentially liberate agricultural land for reforestation, an important way to  remove carbon  from the atmosphere. 

WRI has identified alleviating land use pressures — through efforts like reducing the need to produce more food to compensate for loss and waste — as a key strategy to address  the global land squeeze .

Financial savings for businesses and consumers and increased financial security for farmers

Reducing consumer food waste by even 20%-25% by 2030 could save the world an estimated  $120-$300 billion  per year. These savings play out on an individual level as well as a systemic one; by consuming more of what they purchase, households can reduce their overall spending on food. Eliminating avoidable food waste would save the average family in the United Kingdom more than £700 ($870) each year, while in the United States, the average family would save approximately $1,800.

Reducing food losses — especially post-harvest losses, including food that’s grown but never makes it to market — will also improve farmers’ incomes.

Without the resources to buy up-to-date equipment, many farmers must rely on manual approaches or old, broken equipment that limits their potential yields. Targeted loans and financing can help these farmers buy better equipment, allowing them to harvest more and better-quality crops in a shorter amount of time. The efficiency savings may then lead to higher income. In addition, many smallholder farmers are women who would especially benefit from access to finance and new equipment; reduced food losses could mean they are better positioned to feed, educate and care for their families.

How to Reduce Food Loss and Waste at a Systemic Level

Because food loss and waste happen at every stage of the supply chain, everyone has a vital role to play in addressing this issue.

Households can reduce food waste by focusing on smart shopping and food storage. Some strategies include writing a shopping list, planning meals so that when you go shopping you know what and how much you need, understanding the difference between use-by and best-by date labels, making sure your fridge is set to the optimal temperature, understanding how best to store different foods and making the most of your freezer for leftovers.

Restaurants

Restaurants can reduce food waste by monitoring and managing food usage and ordering. Strategies include measuring food waste in the kitchen to understand what foods are being wasted and designing a fix, engaging staff to understand the importance of minimizing waste, avoiding super-sized portions, and focusing on a smaller range of menu offerings in order to better forecast supply ordering.

In September 2022, Ingka Group, IKEA’s largest retailer, became the  world’s first major company  to cut food waste in half, having done so across all its IKEA restaurants in 32 markets. Such savings can also bring financial benefits for restaurants, with the average restaurant examined in a Champions 12.3 study saving  $7 for every $1 invested  in programs to combat food waste.

Retailers can reduce food waste by improving stocking and food handling practices. Strategies include measuring the amounts and types of food being wasted to identify hotspots that can be reduced; training staff in temperature management, product handling and stock rotation; accepting less-than-perfect looking produce; and educating customers about better food management — for example, how to meal plan and understand date labels, and tips for safe food handling at home.

Many retailers in the UK now include storage advice on food packs (such as “Store in the fridge”) and give customers menu cards with ideas for cooking the produce or foods they purchase. Some are also removing “Best before” date labels from fruit and vegetables, which can help consumers avoid throwing away food that is still perfectly edible. Retailers are explicitly telling customers that these measures are intended to reduce waste and encouraging people to use their senses to tell if food is still good to eat.

Food producers

Farmers, ranchers and fishers can reduce food losses by improving farming practices; for example, by ensuring produce is harvested at the right maturity and using appropriate harvesting equipment to maximize yield while minimizing crop damage. They can also improve their skills or use tools to better schedule harvesting, including accessing better data on weather via new apps like  Mausam  (which is published by India's Ministry of Earth Sciences). And they can engage customers such as wholesale retailers to communicate implications of order changes.

Food distributers

Packing, storage and distribution facilities can reduce food loss and waste by re-examining handling, storage and transportation to ensure adoption of best practices and reduce damage. They can also use technological interventions to optimize the transport of food, and work upstream with customers to provide planning tools and handling and storage technologies that help them reduce losses.

For example, bar coding is being used to track food’s transportation journey, so managers can know where a product has been, for how long, and in what temperatures and conditions. This allows retailers to more accurately label and handle food to maximize shelf life, while also providing traceability in the event of a recall.

Processors and manufacturers

Processors and manufacturers can reduce food loss and waste by implementing technical solutions in the supply chain. Strategies include improving training to reduce technical malfunctions and errors during processing, reengineering production processes and product design to reduce waste, using product sizes and packaging that reduce waste by consumers and standardizing date labels to reduce confusion.

Governments and policymakers

Governments and policymakers can reduce food loss and waste through educational programs, policies and financial incentives that support more efficient food production and distribution. For example, they can embed food loss awareness, technical assistance and financial aid into agricultural extension services and farmer subsidy programs.

Governments can also promote policies to prevent unfair trading practices (such as last-minute order cancellations and unilateral or retroactive changes to contracts); remove barriers to food redistribution via policies such as liability limitations and tax breaks, which make it easier for food suppliers to donate safe but unsold food to charities or those in need; and support policies to standardize food date labelling practices to reduce confusion about product safety and quality and improve consumer understanding of the meaning of date labels. Finally, governments can make measurement and reporting of food loss and waste by large companies mandatory to facilitate benchmarking, transparency and learning.

Learn more about WRI’s work  Fighting Food Loss and Waste .

Relevant Work

We’ve woken up to plastic waste. is food waste next, 3 things to think about before buying your thanksgiving turkey, 4 surprising reasons to measure and reduce food loss and waste, can we really cut food waste in half, how you can help.

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Most food waste happens at home – new research reveals the best ways to reduce it

Associate Professor in Behavioural Decision Making, University of Leeds

Disclosure statement

Gulbanu Kaptan was awarded research funding (with project partners WRAP and Zero Waste Scotland) from the UKRI ESRC for a project on reducing household food waste (2020-2022). She is a Co-investigator on a UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund project on ensuring food system resilience. Between 2021 and 2023, she worked as an expert member of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum.

University of Leeds provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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The EU and UK pledged to reduce food waste, in line with the UN’s goal to halve global food waste by 2030. With most (approximately 53%) of total food waste in European countries occurring in homes, this stage of the food chain presents the most significant challenge due to the need for widespread behaviour change.

Although consumer food waste is a complex issue influenced by factors such as people’s knowledge, habits, social norms and food supply chain efficiency, reducing household food waste is achievable.

Reduction of food waste can have multiple benefits, including conserving limited natural resources such as water, improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. My new research shows that reduction is possible with the right tools for behaviour change and consumer willingness to prevent food waste.

I was in a team of 15 researchers and practitioners with expertise in consumer food waste prevention, working with the European Consumer Food Waste Forum . We evaluated 78 interventions across the EU, UK and beyond .

A combination of different approaches is needed to significantly reduce consumer food waste – there’s no single thing that could change the way everyone deals with their food waste. Customised interventions to specific groups of consumers works best, especially when people are willing, engaged and actively involved in the process.

We identified which of the solutions resulted in the biggest reductions in consumer food waste and made recommendations to tackle the problem.

Here are five steps that can help reduce food waste in your household:

1. Find out the facts

Start by educating yourself and your family to raise your awareness and motivate you to make changes to your daily routine. Look online at environmental charity Wrap ( the Waste and Resources Action Programme ) for useful resources about the problem of food waste and its negative effects on our present and future.

Share this knowledge and experience with your family, including your children. Learn about the ways to prevent food waste at home, for example, how to store food to eat healthily with less waste and how to reuse leftovers.

2. Make small changes

Make simple adjustments to your routine at home. Try going shopping with a list to avoid buying food you don’t need and might not use, plan your meals to buy just the right amount of ingredients, check date labels on packaging to prioritise eating items that are closer to expiring and reuse leftovers to make sure every bit of edible food is consumed.

3. Get confident in the kitchen

Cook and eat at home more often to eat healthily and reduce food waste .

Sign up to a cooking class to develop your skills in a fun way. Learning to prepare food more efficiently or getting creative with leftovers will help you make the most of your ingredients and prevent waste.

4. Use visual reminders

Employ simple tools and prompts to remind you about sustainable switches that can be incorporated into daily life. Put a sticker on foods that are nearing expiration dates to use them first or take pictures of wasted food to put it on your fridge as a visual reminder of the negative impact of waste.

5. Mix it up

Combine various approaches to prevent food waste in a way that works best for you and keeps you on track. Follow online tips and advice from organisations such as Zero Waste Scotland and Hubbub , use food waste apps such as Kitche, Too Good To Go or Olio to share excess ingredients with neighbours.

You can also get involved with community programmes in your local area such as FareShare Yorkshire and Surplus2Purpose , an initiative that redistributes unwanted food stock to those who need it most.

By adopting some or all of these practices and encouraging others to do the same, you can contribute to a larger movement to reduce food waste and help promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits.

• Behaviour change
• Sustainable food
• Motivate me

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The Big Picture

Food waste occurs along the entire spectrum of production, from the farm to distribution to retailers to the consumer . Reasons include losses from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; losses from cooking; and intentional food waste. [1]

This waste is categorized differently based on where it occurs:

• Food “loss” occurs before the food reaches the consumer as a result of issues in the production, storage, processing, and distribution phases.
• Food “waste” refers to food that is fit for consumption but consciously discarded at the retail or consumption phases.

Wasted food has far-reaching effects, both nationally and globally. In the U.S., up to 40% of all food produced goes uneaten [2], and about 95% of discarded food ends up in landfills [3]. It is the largest component of municipal solid waste at 21%. [1] In 2014, more than 38 million tons of food waste was generated, with only 5% diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting. [3] Decomposing food waste produces methane, a strong greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Worldwide, one-third of food produced is thrown away uneaten, causing an increased burden on the environment. [4] It is estimated that reducing food waste by 15% could feed more than 25 million Americans every year. [5]

Benefits of Less Food Waste

• Cost savings on labor through more efficient handling, preparation, and storage of food that will be used.
• Cost savings when purchasing only as much food as needed, and avoiding additional costs of disposal.
• Reduced methane emissions from landfills and a lower carbon footprint.
• Better management of energy and resources, preventing pollution involved in the growing, manufacturing, transporting, and selling of food.
• Community benefits by providing donated, untouched, and safe food that would otherwise be thrown out. [6]

Proposed Solutions to Food Waste

Globally, reducing wasted food has been cited as a key initiative in achieving a sustainable food future . Sustainable Development Goal 12 addresses responsible consumption and production, which includes two indicators to measure (in order to ultimately reduce) global food loss and food waste. [7]

In the U.S, on June 4, 2013, the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, calling on entities across the food chain, including farms, agricultural processors, food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, universities, schools, and local governments. [1] The goals are to:

• Reduce food waste by improving product development, storage, shopping/ordering, marketing, labeling, and cooking methods.
• Recover food waste by connecting potential food donors to hunger relief organizations like food banks and pantries.
• Recycle food waste to feed animals or to create compost, bioenergy, and natural fertilizers.

On September 16, 2015, both agencies also announced for the first time a national food loss and waste goal, calling for a 50% reduction by 2030 to improve overall food security and conserve natural resources.

The National Resources Defense Council issued a summary paper providing guidelines on how to reduce waste throughout the food production chain. [2] The following are some focal points:

• State and local governments can incorporate food waste prevention and education campaigns, and implement municipal composting programs. Governments can provide tax credits to farmers who donate excess produce to local food banks. Proposed bills are currently in place in California, Arizona, Oregon, and Colorado.
• Businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and institutional food services can evaluate the extent of their food waste and adopt best practices. Examples include supermarkets selling damaged or nearly expired produce at discounted prices, or offering “half-off” promotions instead of “buy-one-get-one-free” promotions. Restaurants can offer smaller portions and donate excess ingredients and prepared uneaten food to charities. Schools may experiment with concepts that allow children to create their own meals to prevent less discarded food, such as with salad bars or build-your-own burritos.
• Farms can evaluate food losses during processing, distribution, and storage and adopt best practices. Farmers markets can sell “ugly” produce, which are discarded, misshapen fruits and vegetables that do not meet the usual standards for appearance. Farms can sell fresh but unmarketable produce (due to appearance) to food banks at a reduced rate.
• Consumers can learn when food is no longer safe and edible, how to cook and store food properly, and how to compost. See Tackling Food Waste at Home .

• Source reduction : Earliest prevention by reducing the overall volume of food produced
• Feed hungry people : Donating excess food to community sites
• Feed animals : Donating food scraps and waste to local farmers who can use them for animal feed
• Industrial uses : Donating used fats, oils, and grease to make biodiesel fuel
• Composting : Food waste that is composted to produce organic matter that is used to fertilize soil
• Landfill/Incineration : A last resort for unused food

Read Next:  Tackling Food Waste at Home »

• Reducing meal waste in schools: A healthy solution
• Sustainability
• The Food Law and Policy Clinic of Harvard Law School
• United States Department of Agriculture. U.S Food Waste Challenge. https://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm Accessed 3/20/2017.
• Gunders, D., Natural Resources Defense Council. Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Issue Paper, August 2012. IP: 12-06-B. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf Accessed 3/20/2017.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency. Sustainable Management of Food. https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food Accessed 3/20/2017.
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Exploring the link among food loss, waste and food security: what the research should focus on?

• Fabio G. Santeramo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9450-4618 1  

Agriculture & Food Security volume  10 , Article number:  26 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Food loss and food waste are highly debated topics and likely to stay in the research agendas for the next decades. Their relevance is not only important for developing economies, but also for developed economies, especially due to the impact that loss and waste have on the status of food security. In the present editorial, I comment on how research agendas should be shaped in order to focus on emerging issues, and put emphasis on the topics closely connected to the emerging literature on the circular economy.

During the last decades the growth of the agri-food sector has been parallel to several other dynamics, such as countries’ specialization, trade openness, and socio-economic inequalities. These changes have not eliminated the threats for food insecurity, a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon [ 15 ]. Indeed, they have added further challenges on the global agenda: the share of food-insecure people is still high, with an estimate (before the pandemic) of 680 million people being food insecure [ 6 ] that are expected to increase after the pandemic.

Among the major threats that the global changes are imposing on food security, it is important to mention the increase in the amount of food lost and wasted. Wasting food is a relevant issue for (at least) two reasons: it emphasizes the need for economic efficiency, the necessity to produce foods for those who need it without losing (significant) shares of produced goods due to spoilage of inefficiencies in logistic; it calls for a reflection on the ethical concerns that the current production system imposes on our society.

The terms “food loss” and “food waste” are frequently used as synonymous, while they refer to different aspects of the same problem as suggested in Schuster and Torero [ 23 ]. Food loss, both production and post-harvest losses, refers to the accidental reduction in the quantity and quality of food before consumption. Potential food losses are also associated with food lost, due to pests and diseases, limited harvesting techniques, price volatility, or food not produced, due to the lack of agricultural inputs [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Differently, food waste refers to the intentional discard of food suitable for the human consumption.

To put all these issues in one term, food waste and food loss are detrimental for the status of food security, and, by implying sustained prices [ 17 ], impact on the compositions of diets [ 3 ], that are sensitive to income and price changes [ 18 , 24 ]. While the global demand for food grows, millions of people suffer from undernourishment worldwide [ 1 ]. About 1.3 billion tons of edible foodstuffs (one-third of the global food production) are lost or wasted along the food supply chain [ 9 ].

Food loss and waste may occur during production (e.g., pre-harvest, harvest, breeding), post-production procedures (e.g., handling, storage, transport), processing (e.g., canning, packaging, transformation), distribution (e.g., retail, transport), and consumption (e.g., preparation, table) [ 23 ]. The inefficient use of resources within the agri-food systems impacts on the three dimensions of sustainability: from the environmental perspective, food loss and waste contribute to natural resource depletion and environmental pollution; at the economic level, the impacts of food waste are substantial especially at the consumption and retail stages; from the social point of view, food loss and waste, by reducing food access and availability may undermine food security [ 4 , 10 ].

The reduction of food loss and waste along the supply chain, from production to consumption, is essential to improve food security while reducing pressure on natural resources [ 9 ], as stated for the Sustainable Development Goals envisaged by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [ 25 ]. The global food losses and waste are constantly monitored Footnote 1 on the basis of the Food Loss Index (FLI) and the Food Waste Index (FWI). While the FWI comprising the retail and consumption levels is still under development, the FLI considers food losses occurring from production up to the retail level.

What the literature has already emphasized and what needs to be further investigated

The first author that has investigated the connections between food loss and food security is likely to have been Nyambo [ 12 ], with the important claim farmers in Kenya, by reducing food losses (due to post‐harvest grain handling technology) are capable of enhancing food security.

After this pioneering study, the linkages between food loss and waste and food security have remained under-debated for a couple of decades. At the beginning of the new millennium Marsh et al. [ 11 ] focused on the impact that food losses along the global food supply chains have on food security and concluded that food losses are consistent for the vast majority of traded agricultural commodities. These studies have legitimated the strand of literature devoted to exploring how food losses increase food insecurity in developing countries, the most dependent on trade and in need of innovations.

More recently, Eikenberry and Smith [ 5 ] pointed out that food recovery and donation programmes may help reducing the amount of wasted food, and thus contribute to improve the status of food insecurity in most developed countries.

Containing losses and waste would help cutting the use of resources (i.e. water, energy) used for food production, with benefits for the environment and for the status of food security. In order to reduce food loss and food waste, governments are adopting legislative and non-legislative initiatives and consumer awareness campaigns [ 23 ] to favour the transition towards sustainable agri-food systems and supply chains that ensure food security in a green and circular economy perspective. For instance, countries in the European Union are committed to halve per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and reduce food losses along the food production and supply chains by 2030, to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. To this end, since 2015, the European Commission took actions to prevent food losses and waste under the Circular Economy Action Plan, based on three major principles: reduce, reuse, and recycle (e.g., [ 14 ]).

Efficient containment policies along the entire agri-food supply chains may contribute to save water and energy and to implement an integrated resource use in a green economy [ 2 ]. Several topics are promising and should be explored more and more in order to follow new trends observed in the food industry [ 19 , 20 ]: the development of improved food harvest, storage, processing, transport and retailing processes, the adoption of new technologies; the organization of farmers in cooperatives or professional associations; the promotion of awareness campaigns for retails and consumers; the development of communication strategies among all participants in food supply chains; the promotion of reuse and recycle strategies in a circular and green economy perspective. The recognition of sectoral interconnections may help to improve cross-sectoral collaborations to achieve long-term economic, environmental, and social goals [ 22 ].

Another issue that should be on the research agenda is the relationships linking water and energy use to the status of food security. The global agri-food systems consume large shares of water and energy for food production and supply chains. Agriculture accounts for 72% of all water withdrawals [ 26 ] and food production and supply chains are responsible of about 30% of total global energy consumption [ 6 , 7 ]. In addition, in the global energy mix, the fossil fuel production (highly water-intensive) is still dominant with respect to renewable energy sources (less water-intensive).

Understanding the water–energy–food security nexus is crucial to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals: the domains “water”, “energy”, “food” are strictly interrelated and the achievement of social, economic and environmental goals in a perspective of sustainable development depends on an efficient management of these resources [ 8 ]. Global projections indicate that—due to a growing population, a rapid economic development and the urbanization, the changes in diets and the climate change [ 8 ]—the demand for water is expected to increase by 55% by 2050 [ 13 ], the energy consumption is expected to grow by up to 50% by 2035, and demand for food is expected to increase by 50% to feed the more than 9 billion people projected by 2050 [ 6 ]. Focusing on the nexus between water, energy, and food would help facing the global challenges that the globe.

To sum up, it is advisable to wisely orient the future research on understanding the interrelations between food loss and waste and food security. To this aim, scenario analyses would be useful to explore strategic decisions (e.g., policy, investment, technical intervention) planned or adopted to contain food loss and waste. In order to analyse the food loss/waste-food security nexus and assess the implications of containment policies, reliable, relevant and timely data is needed. Evidence-based analyses of the implications of food loss and waste on food security, supported by high-quality and available data, would provide key information to policymakers aimed at promoting environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable development.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

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Food Loss and Waste

Reducing Food Waste/Back-to-School Back-to-school themed tips to help students and parents reduce food waste.

New FDA Food Code Reduces Barriers to Food Donations The FDA recently released 2022 Food Code helps reduce barriers to food donations by clarifying for the first time that food donations from retail food establishments are acceptable as long as proper food safety practices are followed.

Key Steps for Donating Food – For Retail Food Establishments

In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40 percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is the single largest category of material placed in municipal landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have helped feed families in need. Additionally, water, energy, and labor used to produce wasted food could have been employed for other purposes. Effectively reducing food waste will require cooperation among federal, state, tribal and local governments, faith-based institutions, environmental organizations, communities, consumers, and the entire supply chain.

New Step in Federal Interagency Collaboration

In May 2024, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signed the formal agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to renew their Federal Interagency Collaboration to Reduce Food Loss and Waste (FIFLAW). Additionally, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) joined the collaboration as an important federal partner that has an international reach in reducing food loss and waste, marking a significant expansion of the federal collaboration.

This 2024 agreement updates a series of agreements and national strategies that began in 2018, all aimed at improving coordination and communication across federal agencies attempting to better educate Americans on the impacts and importance of reducing food loss and waste.

“The FDA is committed to achieving the goal of a 50% reduction of food loss and waste by 2030 through a whole-of-government approach in collaboration with the USDA, EPA and USAID,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. “We also recognize the role that empowered U.S. consumers can play in helping to reach the national food waste reduction goal. We encourage consumers and retailers to use the FDA’s food loss and waste reduction resources including the 2022 Food Code, Tips to Reduce Food Waste and the Food Loss and Waste Social Media Toolkit to bolster their efforts.”

On June 12, 2024 , the FDA, USDA and EPA FDA announced the “ National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics ” as part of President Biden’s whole-of-government approach to tackle climate change, feed people, address environmental justice, and promote a circular economy.

The draft strategy featured four objectives:

• Prevent food loss.
• Prevent food waste.
• Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.
• Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling.

Additional Activities

On April 9, 2019, USDA, EPA, and FDA signed a formal agreement with ReFED , Inc. to collaborate on efforts to reduce food waste in the United States. The agencies and ReFED agreed to develop approaches for measuring the success of food waste strategies, advance data collection and measurement efforts, and to participate as appropriate in the Further with Food: Center for Food Loss and Waste partnership, among other activities. The agreement was renewed in September 2021 and will remain in effect for three years.

USDA, EPA and FDA renewed the interagency agreement on June 1, 2024 with the Food Waste Reduction Alliance , representing three major sectors of the supply chain - food manufacturing, retail, and restaurant and food service. Through this partnership, the three agencies formalized industry education and outreach efforts with the Consumer Brands Association, FMI - The Food Industry Association, and the National Restaurant Association, the three founding partners of FWRA. The Alliance pursues three goals: reducing the amount of food waste generated; increasing the amount of safe, nutritious food donated to those in need; and diverting food waste from landfills.

The following are resources to help you do your part to reduce food loss and waste. You play a part in reaching the national food waste reduction goal – to reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030.

Start using these tips today to reduce food waste, save money, and protect the environment.

Key Steps for Donating Food Information retail food establishments should keep in mind when donating food.

How to Cut Food Waste and Maintain Food Safety Learn how food waste and food safety are connected.

Tips to Reduce Food Waste Learn to reduce food waste at the grocery store or when eating out; in the kitchen while storing and preparing; at home while cooking, serving, and enjoying food with family and friends.

Food Waste Animated Videos Check out animated videos that can help you take action to reduce food waste.

Food Loss and Waste Social Media Toolkit Resources to help you spread the word about reducing food waste. Includes sample social media posts.

Infographics View infographics on a variety of food loss and waste related topics in the "Reducing Food Waste" tab.

Wasted food is a growing problem in our modern society and an untapped opportunity. In 2018 alone, over 63 million tons of food waste were generated in the commercial, institutional, and residential sectors, with only 4 percent managed via composting. EPA estimates that more food reaches landfills than any other single material in our everyday trash, constituting 24 percent of municipal solid waste. EPA works with stakeholders throughout the food system to reduce waste through partnership, leadership and action.

Learn more about Sustainable Management of Food from EPA .

USDA is doing its part to help make preventing food waste the first-best option for farmers, businesses, organizations, and consumers. A large number of USDA programs contribute to this objective, ranging from those supporting market and distributional efficiencies to those educating consumers about safe food storage. Selected new and ongoing activities directly contributing to the reduction of food loss and waste are listed below.

Download the FoodKeeper App – The FoodKeeper app provides guidance on safe handling, preparation, and storage of more than 650 food and beverage items.

Watch USDA Food Loss and Waste Videos – USDA has a food loss and waste playlist in YouTube with Videos in English and Spanish.

Learn about USDA's Food Waste Activities .

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Food Waste: An Introduction to the Issue and Questions that Remain

Food waste is a problem throughout the supply chain and across the globe that is increasingly capturing the attention of policymakers. Gustavsson et al. (2011) estimated that one-third of the food produced for consumption globally is lost or wasted. Within the U.S., Buzby et al. (2014) estimated that 31% of food available at the retail and consumer levels was wasted, which translates to a loss of $161 billion and 141 trillion calories per year (enough calories to feed ~ 193,000,000 people a daily diet of 2,000 calories for a year!) – not to mention the loss of the (scarce) resource inputs like land, water, and energy that went into food production.

How is food waste defined?

Discussions on food waste may also reference the term “food loss”; the terms sound synonymous, but there are distinctions between the two. An ERS report by Buzby et al. (2014) uses the following definitions for food loss and food waste:

• “ Food loss represents the amount of edible food, postharvest, that is available for human consumption but is not consumed for any reason. It includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage; loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and plate waste.”
• “ Food waste is a component of food loss and occurs when an edible item goes unconsumed, such as food discarded by retailers due to undesirable color or blemishes and plate waste discarded by consumers.”

Efforts to address food loss have been ongoing in developing countries, such as improvements in harvesting and storage technology, biological controls, etc. For more on research addressing food loss (postharvest loss), see Affognon et al. (2015) and Hodges et al. (2011). Conversely, efforts to address food waste have been more recent. The remainder of this article focuses on the more narrowly defined issue of food waste.

What is being done to reduce food waste?

The costs of food waste (economic and otherwise) have driven efforts in both the public and private sectors to reduce food waste along the supply chain. In the public sector, there are national and international initiatives ( U.S. Food Waste Challenge and SAVE FOOD Initiative , respectively) that set waste reduction goals and are designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and best practices for waste reduction across the supply chain. Further, there has been an increase in legislation related to food waste. In the U.S., legislation was introduced to clarify date labeling (“sell by”, “use by”, “best by”, etc.) on food products. In France, a new law was passed that bans supermarkets from throwing away unsold food; instead, they will be required to donate it (Chrisafis, 2016). Although less recent, the South Korean government implemented a volume-based food waste fee system in 2010 where households are forced to pay based on the weight of their waste.

In the private sector, we have also seen the formation of knowledge-sharing groups (e.g., Food Waste Reduction Alliance ). In addition, many technological solutions have been introduced that are designed to help track waste (e.g., LeanPath ), more optimally plan, shop and cook, donate leftovers, and so on (Hutcherson, 2013). Finally, there has been an increase in the selling of “ugly” fruits and vegetables (those fruits and vegetables that would not normally comply with the cosmetic standards required by retailers). The movement is credited to a grocery retailer in France (Intermarche) but has quickly expanded.  Major U.S. retailers such as Walmart and Whole Foods are offering “ugly” fruits and vegetables in their produce sections.  Both efforts are currently in pilot phase, but with the intention to expand (see Godoy, 2016 for more information).

Questions that remain about food waste

While many reports and food waste reduction initiatives in the public and private sectors identify households (consumers) as one of the biggest sources of food waste, there has been little research to understand how households actually make decisions on throwing out food. Further, this decision is rarely framed as an economic decision, with costs and benefits. There are most certainly cases where the decision to waste may be optimal, depending on one’s preferences, incentives, and resource constraints. For instance, an individual may prefer to throw out milk that is several days past the expiration date rather than run the risk of becoming ill. In discussing his household production model, Becker (1965) suggests that Americans should be more wasteful than people in developing countries because the opportunity cost of their time exceeds the market prices of food and other goods. Thus, it will be critical for future research to account for the different factors that play a role in the keep/waste decision to determine the tradeoffs consumers make in this process.

In addition to examining the waste decision in economic terms, it will be important to explore the heterogeneity across consumers when making these decisions. In other words, we may be able to identify that, in general, consumers will be more averse to wasting food when the cost of that food was high or when there is a replacement readily available; however, some types of people may be even more or less responsive to such factors than the average person. Research has already suggested that income may impact a household’s likelihood of wasting food (Becker, 1965; Daniel, 2016; Qi and Roe, 2016); however, other factors such as age, education, SNAP participation, etc. should also be examined. Understanding these differences may enable policymakers or advocacy groups to better tailor educational efforts to high-waste households.

A final question related to household food waste is: how do we motivate households to change their behavior? Though many ideas come to mind (e.g., education campaigns, waste taxes or waste reduction subsidies, changes in portion sizes or packaging), the answer to this question will likely depend on the household waste decision process, so it is imperative to understand this first before making policy recommendations.

Future articles on food waste will provide insight on some of my own research in this area, including preliminary results from an online survey where we attempt to learn more about the household waste decision process. Additionally, I will share information on my ongoing plate waste study in the University of Illinois dining halls.

References:

Affognon, Hippolyte, Christopher Mutungi, Pascal Sanginga, and Christian Borgemeister. 2015. “Unpacking Postharvest Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Meta-Analysis.” World Development , 66:49-68.

Becker, Gary S. 1965. “A Theory on the Allocation of Time.” The Economic Journal , 75(299):493-517.

Buzby, Jean C., Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman. 2014. “The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.” USDA Economic Research Service, Washington, DC, USA.

Chrisafis, Angelique. 2016. “French Law Forbids Food Waste by Supermarkets.” The Guardian , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Daniel, Caitlin. 2016. “Economic Constraints on Taste Formation and the True Cost of Healthy Eating.” Social Science & Medicine , 148:34-41.

Godoy, Maria. 2016. “Wal-Mart, America’s Largest Grocer, Is Now Selling Ugly Fruit and Vegetables.” NPR The Salt , Available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/20/486664266/walmart-world-s-largest-grocer-is-now-selling-ugly-fruit-and-veg .

Gustavsson, Jenny, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert van Otterdijk, and Alexandre Meybeck. 2011. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention.” Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy.

Hodges, R. J., J. C. Buzby, and B. Bennett. 2011. “Postharvest Losses and Waste in Developed and Less Developed Countries: Opportunities to Improve Resource Use.” Journal of Agricultural Science , 149:37-45.

Hutcherson, Aaron. 2013. “Waste Not, Want Not: 6 Technologies to Reduce Food Waste.” Food+Tech Connect. Available at https://foodtechconnect.com/2013/10/02/waste-not-want-not-6-technologies-to-reduce-food-waste/ .

Qi, Danyi, and Brian E. Roe. 2016. “Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.” PLoS ONE , 11(7): e0159250.

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Most food waste happens at home—new research reveals the best ways to reduce it

by Gulbanu Kaptan, The Conversation

The EU and UK pledged to reduce food waste, in line with the UN's goal to halve global food waste by 2030. With most (approximately 53%) of total food waste in European countries occurring in homes, this stage of the food chain presents the most significant challenge due to the need for widespread behavior change.

Although consumer food waste is a complex issue influenced by factors such as people's knowledge, habits, social norms and food supply chain efficiency, reducing household food waste is achievable.

Reduction of food waste can have multiple benefits, including conserving limited natural resources such as water, improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. My new research shows that reduction is possible with the right tools for behavior change and consumer willingness to prevent food waste.

I was in a team of 15 researchers and practitioners with expertise in consumer food waste prevention, working with the European Consumer Food Waste Forum . We evaluated 78 interventions across the EU, UK and beyond .

A combination of different approaches is needed to significantly reduce consumer food waste—there's no single thing that could change the way everyone deals with their food waste. Customized interventions to specific groups of consumers works best, especially when people are willing, engaged and actively involved in the process.

We identified which of the solutions resulted in the biggest reductions in consumer food waste and made recommendations to tackle the problem.

Here are five steps that can help reduce food waste in your household:

1. Find out the facts

Start by educating yourself and your family to raise your awareness and motivate you to make changes to your daily routine. Look online at the environmental charity Wrap ( the Waste and Resources Action Program ) for useful resources about the problem of food waste and its negative effects on our present and future.

Share this knowledge and experience with your family, including your children. Learn about the ways to prevent food waste at home, for example, how to store food to eat healthily with less waste and how to reuse leftovers.

2. Make small changes

Make simple adjustments to your routine at home. Try going shopping with a list to avoid buying food you don't need and might not use, plan your meals to buy just the right amount of ingredients, check date labels on packaging to prioritize eating items that are closer to expiring and reuse leftovers to make sure every bit of edible food is consumed.

3. Get confident in the kitchen

Cook and eat at home more often to eat healthily and reduce food waste .

Sign up to a cooking class to develop your skills in a fun way. Learning to prepare food more efficiently or getting creative with leftovers will help you make the most of your ingredients and prevent waste.

4. Use visual reminders

Employ simple tools and prompts to remind you about sustainable switches that can be incorporated into daily life. Put a sticker on foods that are nearing expiration dates to use them first or take pictures of wasted food to put it on your fridge as a visual reminder of the negative impact of waste.

5. Mix it up

Combine various approaches to prevent food waste in a way that works best for you and keeps you on track. Follow online tips and advice from organizations such as Zero Waste Scotland and Hubbub , use food waste apps such as Kitche, Too Good To Go or Olio to share excess ingredients with neighbors.

You can also get involved with community programs in your local area such as FareShare Yorkshire and Surplus2Purpose , an initiative that redistributes unwanted food stock to those who need it most.

By adopting some or all of these practices and encouraging others to do the same, you can contribute to a larger movement to reduce food waste and help promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits.

Provided by The Conversation

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Consumer perceptions, behaviors, and knowledge of food waste in a rural american state.

• 1 Food and Health Lab, Department of Health and Human Development, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, United States
• 2 Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition, Omaha, NE, United States

Understanding consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards food waste is critical for informing evidence-based programs to advance sustainable food systems. A lack of knowledge regarding consumer food waste at the local level limits the ability to inform place-based solutions that are locally relevant. We administered an online survey to examine consumer perceptions, behaviors, and knowledge of food waste at the household level in Montana, a rural state in the United States. The majority of surveyed participants (58%) reported that they waste 10% or less of procured food. Almost half the participants (48%) are willing to take additional action to reduce food waste. Social factors including guilt and setting a good example were found to be greater motivators for reducing food waste compared to economic and environmental factors. Most survey participants (80%) perceive it would not be difficult to notably reduce their household's food waste. Overall, participants' reporting of their household's food waste quantity is lower than national quantities while their willingness to reduce food waste was higher than findings from a national survey. This study highlights the need for place-based solutions that are locally relevant to reduce household food waste towards enhancing the sustainability of food systems for supporting planetary health.

Introduction

Food waste is a major challenge for advancing sustainable food systems with environmental, economic, social, and health implications. Globally, an estimated 30–50% of all food produced is wasted ( Food and Agriculture Organization, 2009 ; Fox and Fimeche, 2013 ; Gunders et al., 2017 ). Food waste occurs throughout the food supply chain from agricultural production, postharvest handling, storage, and processing to distribution and consumption ( Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015 ). Generally, the majority of food waste in low-income countries occurs due to technical limitations at the storage, processing, and distribution levels while occurring at the consumption level in medium and high-income countries ( Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015 ). For example, in the United States, over 30% of the national food supply is lost at the retail and consumer levels ( Buzby et al., 2014 ), with some estimates of post-harvest food waste as high as 40% ( Hall et al., 2009 ; Neff et al., 2015 ). It is thus critical to understand consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding food waste in order to inform evidence-based programs for reducing food waste towards enhancing the sustainability of food systems for supporting planetary health.

On an environmental basis, ~24% of freshwater used in crop production, 23% of cropland area, and 23% of fertilizer use go towards wasted food ( Kummu et al., 2012 ). In the United States, over one quarter of freshwater use and 4% of oil use is accounted for by wasted food ( Hall et al., 2009 ). Economically, the total value of food lost at the retail and consumer levels in the United States is ~$161.6 billion annually, which translates to $371 worth of food wasted per capita at the consumer level or 9.2% of each consumer's average annual food spending ( Buzby et al., 2014 ). With regards to diets and health, the amount of food wasted at the retail and consumer levels in the United States totals 1,249 calories per capita per day ( Buzby et al., 2014 ). The caloric loss of food wasted at the consumer and retail levels represents a threat to food security with 10.5% of households in the United States experiencing food-insecurity annually ( USDA ERS, 2019 ). Globally, over 690 million people are chronically undernourished, an estimate which does not account for the COVID-19 pandemic ( FAO, 2020 ). Compounded with a growing global population, there is a projected need for a 50–70% increase in the worldwide food supply by 2050 ( Food and Agriculture Organization, 2009 ; Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012 ; Bond et al., 2013 ). Climate change, land availability, water scarcity, and other environmental and societal factors present major constraints to being able to sustainably increase food production by 50–70% ( Wheeler and von Braun, 2013 ; Willett et al., 2019 ). Overall, society cannot afford to lose food in the food system as waste so that is can better support human wellbeing and planetary health.

Given the critical need to decrease food waste to more sustainably feed the world's population, countries and organizations around the world have set goals for reducing food waste. For example the Sustainable Development Goal 12 of the United Nations promotes Responsible Consumption and Production ( United Nations, 2015 ). In the United States, the US Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency partnered to create food waste reduction goals to reduce per capita food waste by 50% by 2030 ( United Nations, 2015 ; USDA, 2015 ). Given the notable role that consumers play a notable role in generating food waste in high-income countries such as the United States, evidence-based education, programs, and policies are called for to reduce food waste that are locally relevant.

Previous studies highlight the need to understand food waste within the routines and resources of households towards developing evidence-based education campaigns, interventions, and policies ( Evans, 2011 ; Quested et al., 2013 ; Graham-Rowe et al., 2014 ; Porat et al., 2018 ; Willett et al., 2019 ; Turvey et al., 2021 ). Effective evidence-based consumer food waste reduction strategies have been implemented in several European countries ( Parry et al., 2014 ; Schmidt, 2016 ). Previous research on consumer knowledge and behaviors in the United States with regards to food waste found that three quarters of respondents reported to waste less food than is estimated for the average American, highlighting that consumers are either not aware of how much food they waste or the actual scale of food waste nationally ( Neff et al., 2015 ). Top motivations for reducing food waste among consumers in the United States include saving money and setting a good example for children, while environmental reasons were ranked last ( Neff et al., 2015 ). Another national study in the United States found that consumers' decisions to waste food vary based on demographic and contextual factors including the price of food, amount of food, smell of food, availability of a replacement, and if the food is a leftover meal versus a single ingredient ( Ellison and Lusk, 2018 ).

However, while trends regarding consumer food waste have been reported at the national scale, there remain gaps in understanding consumer food waste dynamics at local levels in order to design evidence-based solutions that are place-based and context specific. Research is further needed to examine trends in consumer perception, behaviors, and knowledge since the implementation of national targets to reduce food waste in 2015. This study examines consumer perceptions, behaviors, and knowledge of food waste at the household level in Montana, a rural agricultural state in the United States, through an online survey that was distributed through community groups. Findings are expected to inform the development of evidence-based solutions that are place-based and locally relevant.

Study Location

A structured survey was administered in the rural agricultural state of Montana in the United States in 2016. Montana was selected as a study site as it is where the research team is based. The state has a population of 1,084,225 ( US Census Bureau, 2020 ). Several distinct features of Montana compared to other states in the United States include: (1) being the third least-densely populated state in the United States; (2) having an agricultural economy based on ranching and cereal farming; (3) being the home of seven Native American reservations and the ancestral homelands of multiple tribes of indigenous people; (4) being a red state with a track record of the majority voting Republican since 1968; (5) having a large majority Caucasian population and; (6) having a rapidly-growing tourism sector for its multiple national parks and mountain ranges as part of the Rocky Mountains. In addition to being one of the least densely populated states, 76% of US states (territories not included) have at least one county with a population greater than the entire state of Montana based on the 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC), a USDA ERS classification system of counties in the United States by population ( Supplementary Figure 1 ). The Rural-Urban Continuum Codes include RUCC codes 1 through 9, with RUCC code 1 including the most populous metropolitan counties with over one million people, and a RUCC code of 9 that includes the least populous and nonmetropolitan and rural counties with under 2,500 people ( USDA Economic Research Service, 2013 ).

Survey Development and Administration

Our study team developed a survey based on previous consumer surveys on food waste including national studies in the United States ( Parry et al., 2014 ; Neff et al., 2015 ; Qi and Roe, 2016 ) coupled with additional questions in order to address the overall research question: What are consumer attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and perceptions about food waste and what factors contribute to household food waste and food waste reduction in Montana? Additionally, the survey was designed to address the following specific research questions: (1) What are consumer food procurement practices, behaviors, and perspectives in Montana?; (2) What is consumer behavior regarding food date labels, food storage, dietary planning, consuming leftovers, cooking, composting, and food waste in Montana?; (3) How do consumers perceive various strategies to reduce food waste in terms of ease and efficiency as part of their daily schedules in Montana?; (4) How do consumer practices, behaviors, and perspectives regarding food waste vary based on demographics?

The survey was field tested among a group of consumers and experts in the fields of behavior science, sustainable food systems, and nutrition and refined based on feedback. The final survey had a total of 35 questions and was administered online using the Qualtrics survey platform through the HELPS LAB at Montana State University. The research team contacted Extension services, community organizations (examples: farmer associations, food bank network, community colleges), and community list serves across the state of Montana to distribute the survey using purposive sampling. The survey was distributed to over 3,000 adults with a completion rate of over 10%. Permission for the participation of human subjects in the survey was granted by the Institutional Review Board at Montana State University. The first 100 participants to complete the survey received a $15 gift card for participating in the study as a study incentive.

Data Analysis

For each survey question, responses were tabulated based on frequency of response options for the number of participants that answered the question. Given that some participants refrained from answering some questions, sample size may vary among survey questions. Statistical analysis was conducted using JMP SPSS software. A contingency analysis was completed for select survey questions to understand differences in responses based on demographic characteristics with the Pearson p -value reported at a significance level p < 0.05. Demographic characteristics were categorized by generation (age), income (perceived ability to meet basic needs of the household), rurality, and level of involvement in household food management. Specifically, responses were analyzed for differences among generational age groupings based on age during the survey distribution year 2016 and included the following groups: (1) “Millennial+” comprised of Generation Z ages 19 years and under, and Millennials ages 20–35 years; (2) “Generation X” comprised of Generation X ages 36–51 years; and (3) “Baby Boomer+” comprised of the Baby Boomer generation ages 52–70 years and the Post War generation ages 71 years and older. Differences in income were also analyzed using a proxy for income level and included households having (1) “less than enough,” (2) “enough,” and (3) “more than enough” to meet household needs. The rurality of informants was assigned by Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC). Since Montana is largely rural, RUCC's were further combined and included non-metropolitan counties (1) RUCC 8–9 completely rural or <2,500 urban population, both adjacent/not adjacent to a metro area, (2) RUCC 6–7 urban population of 2,500–19,999 both adjacent/not adjacent to a metro area, (3) RUCC 5 urban population of 20,000 or more, adjacent/not adjacent to a metro area (there are no RUCC 4 codes in MT), and finally metropolitan counties, (4) RUCC 3 (there are no RUCC codes 1–2). In addition, responses were analyzed for differences based on active role in managing the kitchen, grocery/food shopping, and cooking and included (1) “I manage most,” or (2) “I manage half.” The response option “I do not [manage/shop/cook]” was not included in the analysis due to low frequency of response selection and resulting small sample size. The response options that included a 6-point Likert scale were re-grouped for the statistical analysis and included the following groupings: “Often/Always,” “Sometimes,” and “Rarely/Never.” The response option “Not applicable” was not included in the statistical analysis.

Consumer Background

A total of 329 adult participants completed the majority of the food waste survey between the ages of 19–75, with a mean age of 41 years. Economically, most participants shared they felt financially comfortable regarding access to food; a majority (63%) of participants indicated they have “plenty of food and lots or some to share” while around a quarter (26%) indicated that “have enough,” 10% indicated they “have enough but stretch resources,” and 1% indicated they need support meeting their basic food needs.

Most participants reported they live in a non-metropolitan county with an urban population of 20,000 or more (46%), followed by those living in a metropolitan county in metro areas of fewer than 250,000 (28%), non-metropolitan county with an urban population of 2,500–19,999 (16%), and non-metropolitan county completely rural or <2,500 urban population (10%). By contrast, just over half of all Montana counties have RUCC codes 8–9 (54%), followed by RUCC code 6–7 (32%), and RUCC codes 5 and RUCC code 3 (7%) ( Supplementary Figure 1 ) ( USDA Economic Research Service, 2013 ).

The majority of participants (69%) reported they do all or most of the food shopping in the household, 28% do approximately half the food shopping, and 3% indicated that someone else in their household does all or most of the food shopping. Almost three fourths (74%) of participants indicated they do all or most of the organizing and managing of food items in the kitchen, near one quarter (23%) stated they do about half of the organization and management, and 3.3% stated this is someone else's role in their household.

Regarding food preparation, over half (63%) of participants reported they do all or most of the cooking in the household, near one third (29%) stated they do half, and 8% stated that someone else does all or most of the cooking. Almost three fourths of participants (72%) indicated that they cook meals daily, while near a quarter (24%) reported they cook a few times a week, and a small percentage (4%) cook meals at home once a week. Regarding consumption of meals outside of the home, over one third (36%) of participants stated they eat outside of the home a few times a week, approximately one quarter (24%) eat outside once a week, another near quarter (26%) eat outside of the home less than once a week, and 13% stated they eat outside of the home on a daily basis.

Consumer Food Procurement Perceptions and Behaviors

Multiple food shopping behaviors were reported that can facilitate reducing household food waste including ( Figure 1 ): (1) making a shopping list before going to the grocery store (65% of participants); (2) always or often checking to see what is in the refrigerator and pantry before going to the grocery store (65%); (3) always or often planning meals before grocery shopping (50%); (4) always or often estimating how much of various items will be needed before shopping (64%); (5) always or often sticking to their grocery shopping list at the store (65%); (6) rarely or never getting tempted in the store to buy appealing products that may not be eaten (52%); (7) rarely or never buying larger packages of food that are likely to go to waste (47%) and; (8) rarely or never buying more food than needed due to items being on sale (59%). Concurrently, a majority (61%) of informants reported they sometimes go to the grocery shop on an empty stomach. Significant differences in shopping behaviors were found among the three generational groupings, and between participants with an active role in kitchen management, shopping, and cooking ( p < 0.05). Specifically, the proportion of those that planned ahead for shopping based on estimating their need and were rarely tempted by in store appeal and rarely bought in larger bulk packaging, due to sales, and rarely shopped on empty stomachs were higher for the Baby Boomer+ group than the other generations. Differences were not significant by perceived household income level and rurality. Those that do most to all kitchen management, shopping, or cooking more prevalently reported they often/always check fridge before shopping, estimate items needed before shopping, stick to a shopping list while in the store, and rarely/never tempted by in store buying appeal, buy larger packages of food that what they will use, and buy more food due to sales. Those that manage the kitchen, shopping, or cooking half the time more prevalently shop on an empty stomach.

Figure 1 . Self-reporting of grocery shopping practices and behaviors (values <5% not labeled in figure; *significant differences p < 0.05).

The majority of participants either strongly disagreed (34%) or disagreed (26%) to the statement “I buy more processed foods than I would otherwise because fresh foods spoil more quickly.” A quarter of participants either agreed (19%) or strongly agreed (6%) to this statement regarding processed foods while 14% neither agreed nor disagreed. Similarly, the majority of participants either strongly disagreed (28%) or disagreed (25%) to the statement “I buy more canned foods than I would otherwise because fresh foods spoil more quickly.” Just over a quarter of participants either agreed (22%) or strongly agreed (5%) to this statement regarding canned foods while 20% neither agreed nor disagreed.

The majority of participants either strongly disagreed (37%) or disagreed (32%) to the statement “fresh foods go bad/get spoilt because people in the household prefer other foods.” Less than a fifth of participants either agreed (13%) or strongly agreed (5%) to this statement regarding fresh foods while 12% neither agreed nor disagreed. The majority of participants either agreed (37%) or strongly agreed (19%) that they purchase more fruits and vegetables than they would otherwise due to nutritional content. Nearly a quarter neither agreed nor disagreed (24%) while nearly a fifth of participants either disagreed (13%) or strongly disagreed (6%) with this statement regarding the nutrient content of fruits and vegetables.

Consumer Food Waste Perceptions, Behaviors, and Knowledge

Participants reported variably wasting different types of food ( Figure 2 ) with the least wasted food item being packaged foods (60%) followed by milk and meat. Nearly all participants (95%) reported they waste food in the household, with variation in the amount wasted. Just over half (53%) of the participants reported they waste about 10% of food purchased, near a quarter (26%) reported to waste about 20% of food, and near a tenth (12%) reported wasting 30% of food. A small percentage of participants (2%) reported wasting ~40% of food and <1 % (1%) reported wasting 50% or more of the food they procure. Approximately half (52%) of the participants reported that they rarely or never throw away leftovers while 43% claimed they sometimes throw away leftovers. Only 6% of participants reported they often throw out leftovers. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of participants reported they rarely or never throw away food due to not liking the taste and nearly a quarter of participants (24%) reported they sometimes throw out food due to not liking the taste. Only 3% of participants reported they often throw out food because of disliking the taste. Just over half (52%) reported they sometimes forget about items in the fridge until they are too old to eat, one-third (34%) of respondents reported they rarely or never forget, and 14% reported they often do. When food is wasted in the household, participants dispose of food in multiple ways including discarding of food in the trash (69% of participants), composting (47%), using the garbage disposal, and feeding excess food to pets/livestock (26%).

Figure 2 . Food waste in the household by food type. Self-reporting of how often food is wasted in the household based on the following food groups: Fruits and vegetables, bread, meat, milk, packaged foods, and homemade meals (values < 5% not labeled in figure).

When deciding whether or not to discard food, almost all (92%) of participants reported that they make decisions either based on “use-by,” “sell-by,” or “best before” date labels. Just over a third (33%) of participants make decisions depending on the food type, near a third (28%) refer to labels most of the time, less than a fifth (17%) sometimes make decisions based on food date labels and 14% of participants reported they always make decisions based on food date labels. Nearly three fourths (74%) of participants indicated that they use their senses (smell, taste, and sight) when deciding whether to throw out milk, 29% look at the “use by date,” 17% look at the “sell by date,” and the remaining participants think about how long the milk has been in the household or whether it was left out of the refrigerator.

Knowledge regarding the amount of food wasted in the United States varied among participants with almost one-third of participants thinking that ~40% of food is wasted nationally (29%), about one-quarter thinking 30% is wasted (26%), one-fifth thinking 20% is wasted (19%), while a smaller minority reported thinking 50% or more of food is wasted (17%), and even less thinking that 10% of food is wasted (9%). Differences were significant among the generational groups ( p < 0.05). Overall, participants that perceived food waste to be under 20% were more prevalent among the Millennial+ group (34%), followed by Generation X (30%), and less prevalent in the Baby Boomer+ group (16%). The majority (63%) of respondents reported hearing or learning about the issue of food waste in the past year via news, social media, or elsewhere, near one third (28%) had not recently heard about the issue of food waste, and 8.8% were unsure. The majority of participants (71%) perceived their household food waste to be less than the average American, 20% perceived they produced the same amount of waste as the average American, 6% perceived they produced more waste than the average American, and 3% were unsure. Differences were significant among the generational groups and those with an active role in kitchen management ( p < 0.05). Of the generational groups, none of the participants in the Baby Boomer+ group perceived they waste “more,” with 95% reporting they waste “less” than the national average. Similarly, none of the participants that managed the kitchen half the time perceived they waste more than average, with 85% reporting they waste less. Differences were not significant by perceived household income level and rurality. The majority (66%) of participants reported that discarding food “bothers them a lot,” near a third (29%) reported that household food waste “bothers them a little,” and a small percentage reported that discarding food does not bother them at all (6%) or were unsure (6%).

Half (50%) of participants agreed with the statement that they throw away food because they are worried about food poisoning and 39% of participants disagreed with this statement. Nearly half (47%) of the participants disagreed that food waste costs them money while just over half (34%) agreed that food waste costs them money ( Figure 3 ).

Figure 3 . Consumer perceptions of household food waste production. Consumer agreement pr disagreement regarding their perceptions of household food waste (values < 5% not labeled in figure).

Consumer Perceptions and Behaviors to Reduce Food Waste

The majority of participants (61%) reported that they did not seek out information about strategies to reduce household food waste while the remaining participants (39%) did. There were significant differences among generational groups ( p < 0.05) with the greatest prevalence of Millennials that reported to seek information on reducing housed food waste (51%). Differences were not significant by food management roles, rurality, or household income level. The majority of participants perceived they were either fairly knowledgeable (44%) or very knowledgeable 22% about strategies to reduce food waste and 25.4% felt they were somewhat knowledgeable about food waste reduction strategies. Most participants perceived that they made either a moderate amount of effort (49%) or a lot of effort (29%) to reduce food waste. A fifth of the participants (20%) reported that they made little effort and a small percentage (3%) reported they made no effort to reduce household food waste. There were significant differences among those who have an active role in cooking ( p < 0.05) with the greatest prevalence of participants that reported they currently make “a lot” of effort to reduce food waste coming from those that reported they cook “most of the time” (79%). Participants reported engaging in multiple food waste reduction strategies with regards to food storage and preparation ( Figure 4 ) with prevalent practices being to make sure to cook food before it goes bad (67%) and to prioritize to eat leftover foods or foods close to expiration (60%).

Figure 4 . Participant engagement in household food waste reduction strategies. Participants were asked to report how often they engage in six household food waste reduction strategies/practices (values < 5% not labeled in figure).

The majority of participants reported they were either very interested (48%) or fairly interested (36%) in taking additional action to reduce their household food waste, 13% reported they were somewhat interested, and 4% were not at all interested. Of those respondents that reported they had some level of interest in taking action to reduce waste, there was a significant difference between those that have an active role in cooking and rurality ( p < 0.05). Specifically, participants that do “most to all” of the cooking more prevalently reported they were very interested in reducing household food waste as well as participants that live in urban populations of 20,000 or more. Participants expressed interest in learning additional strategies to reduce household food waste including: (1) what can be frozen and for how long (52%); (2) recipes to help use up food (44%); (3) how to creatively use leftovers (42%); (4) what foods are dangerous when spoiled versus simply distasteful (41%); (5) how to store specific items (35%); (6) how to interpret food date labels (29%); and (7) apps or online programs to help with food shopping and portion planning (14%). Approximately a third of participants (37%) perceived it would be easy to notably reduce their household food waste, 28% perceived it would be neither difficult nor easy, 18% perceived it would be difficult, 14% perceived it would be very easy, and 4% perceived it would be very difficult.

The majority of participants generally agreed regarding factors that they perceived as either very important or important in motivating them to reduce household food waste ( Figure 5 ) including wanting to set a good example for their children, personal guilt, and the possibility of saving money.

Figure 5 . Motivating factors for reducing food waste. Participants were asked to report how important the following factors are in motivating them to reduce food waste (values <5% not labeled in figure).

Consumer Perceptions on Strategies to Reduce Food Waste in Market and Food Service Food Environments

With regards to market food environments such as grocery stores and supermarkets, the majority (62%) of survey respondents agreed that they find desirable strategies that offer discounts on over-ripe produce or food near its expiration date. Other strategies that the majority of respondents perceive as acceptable for market food environments are: (1) access to “bulk food” bins where customers can scoop out exactly how much food they need (59%); (2) “buy one, get one later” offers rather than “buy one, get one” (55%); and (3) discounts on produce that is less visually appealing (51%). A notable amount of respondents also found desirable the strategies of having more foods offered in resealable packages (48%) as well as a greater availability of a variety of food product sizes and/or packaging options (46%).

With regards to food service food environments such as restaurants, strategies that the majority of respondents perceive as acceptable are: (1) donating excess food (70%); (2) offering smaller portion sizes with an option for “free refills” (65%); and (3) providing smaller plates at the salad bar for buffet-style restaurants (55%). A notable amount of respondents also found desirable the strategy of waiting longer for items “made to order” rather than purchasing ready-made items (45%). A third of respondents (32%) perceived offering less variety on a menu as acceptable and another third perceived not providing trays at the salad bar (31%) as acceptable.

This study highlights that food waste is a concern among consumers in the rural American state of Montana and that place-based solutions are needed to further reduce food waste. There was a higher prevalence of significant differences in shopping behaviors among the Baby Boomer+ generation and those with an active role in kitchen management, cooking, or shopping. This points to those having greater experience (experience with age and/or kitchen roles) tend to have more prevalent shopping behaviors that may lead to waste reduction. Differences were not significantly different based on rurality and perceived household income. Variation regarding consumer food waste dynamics such as motivators for reducing food waste were found in our Montana-based study compared to previous national studies, calling for solutions that are place-based and locally relevant. The majority of participants: (1) have heard about food waste issues in the past year; (2) are implementing multiple strategies to reduce food waste; (3) are willing to learn about additional strategies to reduce food waste and; (4) perceive it would be relatively easy to reduce their household food waste. The most commonly reported reasons for wasting food were for forgetting about food and disposing it due to safety concerns. However, while participants noted they are willing to reduce food waste, the majority reported that they did not seek out information about strategies to reduce household food waste. Thus, food waste campaigns should be administered through local community organizations and enterprises to provide households with strategies to reduce food waste including tips with meal planning and safe food storage. In addition, future work should enhance consumer knowledge regarding the extent of food waste through participatory approaches such as citizen-science. As place-based solutions should draw upon local factors, this study indicates that programming in Montana should take into consideration social factors of guilt and setting a good example which were found to be key motivators for reducing food waste. Concurrently, programming should provide education on the tremendous impacts of food waste on the environment as well as economically for supporting food security in order to advance consumer knowledge in these areas for enhancing equitable and sustainable food systems.

Both commonalities as well as differences were found in survey responses from our Montana-based study compared to two previous national-level surveys, emphasizing the importance of place-based understanding for informing evidence-based programs and policies. Findings of this study regarding the amount of food waste reported by the majority of participants (10% or less of food) is comparable to consumer reporting of a national study ( Neff et al., 2015 ) and is notably lower compared to the national average of food waste estimates between 30–40% ( Buzby et al., 2014 ). This study further found that 71% of participants perceived their household food waste to be less than the average American while previous findings by the national survey by Neff et al. (2015) found that almost all (97%) of participants reported wasting less than the average American. As our study along with that of Neff et al. (2015) involved self-reporting of food waste, consumers are likely not aware of the extent of their food waste and/or may intentionally underreport their food waste. Previous studies suggest that consumer's generally underestimate the amount of their household food waste and that this limitation can be overcome through waste audits, participant journaling, and ethnographic studies ( Quested et al., 2013 ). However, perceptions regarding the amount of food wasted by consumers of our Montana-based study are more aligned to national averages of food waste quantities compared to perceptions previously reported in the national study by Neff et al. (2015) . This greater alignment of food waste knowledge by study participants may potentially be due to an increased understanding of food waste due to media and programming since the implementation of national targets in 2015 to reduce food waste. A greater proportion of participants (63%) from our Montana-based study reported that they have heard about food waste in the past year through the news, social media, or other means compared to the percentage of participants (42%) in a national study by Neff et al. (2015) . Overall, participants of our Montana-based study were more willing to take additional action to reduce their household food waste (48% of participants) than the national survey (23% of participants in Neff et al.'s study; 2015) while the percentage of participants who perceive it will not be difficult to notably reduce their food waste is similar to national survey [84% of consumers ( Neff et al., 2015 )].

Guilt emerged as a major determinant for reducing food waste by almost half the participants of our Montana-based study compared to one third in the previous national study by Neff et al. (2015) . Understanding the role of personal guilt as a determinant of reducing food waste is thus important for designing education and programming for reducing consumer food waste. Previous studies have found that religious affiliation is significantly related to guilt ( Albertsen et al., 2006 ). While our survey did not ask people about their religious affiliation, ~65% of the adult population in Montana professes Christianity, which is aligned to the national average ( Albertsen et al., 2006 ). Given the association of guilt with religious affiliation, local food waste programming may consider engaging faith communities. Multiple programs have previously enlisted faith communities to fight food waste ( NPR, 2016 ). For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency launched the Food Steward's Pledge to engage religious groups of all faiths to help redirect food waste to hungry mouths as part of targets to reduce food waste by 2050 ( EPA, 2016 ). Local community leaders have been recognized to be critical in getting out the message of what individual families can do to reduce food waste ( EPA, 2016 ).

While guilt and setting a good example were found to be greater motivators for reducing food waste compared to economic and environmental factors, a greater number of participants compared to the national study by Neff et al. (2015) are motivated to reduce food waste on the basis of environmental factors (including the greenhouse gasses, energy, water, and resources used to get food to their plate) while being in line with the national survey by Qi and Roe (2016) . Previous survey research has found that consumers in Montana are more willing than consumers in some other parts of the country to pay price premiums on food and beverage items for supporting environmental sustainability ( Boehm et al., 2019 ), suggesting a potential difference in environmental values of residents of Montana compared to other states. Being a rural state prized for its wilderness, healthy ecosystems (including the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem), and biodiversity, some residents in Montana may have a land ethic that enhances their valuation of environmental resources. However, given that social factors were greater motivators than environmental and economic factors for reducing food waste, education is needed regarding the impacts of food waste on the environment as well as economically for supporting food security. While household food security is near the national average in Montana, rural areas in Montana have lower food security ( USDA ERS, 2019 ); it is thus important for households in these areas to understand how reducing food waste can support food security.

Given that the majority of participants are very interested in reducing their household food waste and perceive it would not be difficult to reduce their food waste, findings indicate the potential to reduce consumer food waste in Montana through research, education, interventions, and policy. Promising strategies to include in place-based community education and other initiatives to reduce food waste based on this study and the literature include:

(1) Develop skills on safe storage practices including how to refrigerate, freeze, dry, ferment, pickle, and cook foods as well as literacy on duration for each storage technique.

(2) Enhance literacy on food safety regarding food labels (“best by” vs. “use by” dates) and what foods are dangerous when spoiled versus being distasteful.

(3) Develop creative, delicious, and culturally-relevant recipes that incorporate food that would be wasted such as repurposing leftovers, using fruit to create shrubs and other drinks, and using vegetables to create sauces and soups.

(4) Promote skills and behavior associated with meal planning to budget food usage throughout the week such as avoiding grocery shopping when hungry to avoid impulse buying and making shopping lists for the meals to be eaten in a week.

(5) Organize food storage spaces so that older and more perishable items are visible.

(6) Foster mindful eating during meals by reducing the size of plates and bowls, reducing portion sizes, eating slowly, and paying attention to what is being consumed and wasted.

(7) Support composting of produce at the household level through community-organized initiatives involving accessible anaerobic digestors that divert produce that can't avoid being wasted from the landfill.

(8) Donate nutritious, safe, and untouched food to food banks/nutrition assistance programs when it cannot be consumed at the household-level.

Community groups such as Extension, nonprofit organizations, faith groups, social influences, popular media, and food enterprises can serve as leaders to engage consumers in community education regarding food waste including enhancing knowledge while targeting context-specific behaviors and motivating people to feel responsible for reducing food waste. In addition to household food waste, the surveyed consumers supported various strategies to reduce food waste in their food environments (markets and food service) including: (1) discounts on over-ripe produce or food near its expiration date; (2) bulk food bins where customers can scoop out exactly how much food they need; (3) providing “buy one get one later” offers rather than “buy one get one” offers; (4) offering discounts on produce that is less visually appealing; (5) donating excess food; (6) providing smaller portions in restaurants with the option for “free refills,”; and (7) providing smaller plates at salad bars.

Findings from this study have the potential of informing existing organizations initiatives in their food waste efforts. Multiple businesses, organizations, and community groups are becoming more proactive about food waste community education and reduction strategies in Montana ( Supplementary Table 1 ). At consumer levels, organizations such as Zero by Fifty Missoula encourage households to reduce food waste and promote compost collection organizations. These compost collection companies are located throughout the state and create residential and commercial compost opportunities. Several research projects in MT are also engaging local households regarding food waste and composting. For example, Montana State University is taking a citizen-science approach partnering with the city of Bozeman and local households to study household food waste and explore the potential to use anaerobic digestion for processing household food waste in the city, applying a decentralized and household approach to organic waste management. Schools have been implementing programs such as Smarter Lunchrooms to increase awareness about lunchroom food waste. At the two largest universities in the state, Montana State University and University of Montana, food waste reduction efforts are implemented in the dining halls using software to ensure appropriate ordering, composting, and marketing directed towards students. Organizations such as Helena Food Share, Montana Food Bank Network, and Missoula Food Bank and Community Center are utilizing food recovery programs by partnering with local grocery stores and businesses to rescue food and stock food banks with food that would otherwise be set aside for the landfill.

In addition to local efforts, national and international efforts should be modified with place-based adaptations. Organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Department of Agriculture are already working in this capacity with their efforts to work with communities, organizations, and businesses along with state, tribal and local governments to reduce food loss and waste by 50% by 2031. Findings from this study and other local studies can inform these existing initiatives to enhance their local relevance.

Lastly, technological developments should be leveraged to better inform households regarding when food is unsafe to eat and needs to be disposed or composted. In recent years, chemical and biological sensors are being developed for food quality monitoring including sensors for measuring biomarkers of freshness, allergens, pathogens, adulterants and toxicants ( Mustafa and Andreescu, 2018 ). These sensors are based on various technologies including colorimetric, electrochemical, optical, and mass-based detection and ultimately provide an “index of quality” of the product in real time ( Mustafa and Andreescu, 2018 ). Deployment of such food quality monitors in ways that are affordable and accessible for consumers as well as stakeholders throughout the supply chain could lead to notable transformation of the food system with respect to food waste reduction. Advances in packaging, such as smart packaging, with built in sensors to detect bacterial growth would further help prevent food waste of packaged foods at the household level as well the entire supply chain from farm to plate ( Mustafa and Andreescu, 2018 ).

Overall, on the basis of the evidence from our Montana-based household study and the food waste literature, we propose the following community education and research recommendations for reducing consumer food waste towards enhancing the sustainability of food systems for supporting planetary health:

(1) Evidence-based interventions, programs, and policies to reduce food waste should be place-based in order to be locally relevant by acknowledging context-specific social, environmental, economic, and health factors that influence value-systems, perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors such as factors that motivate consumers to reduce food waste as well as gaps in their understanding.

(2) Community groups such as faith groups, food enterprises, social influences, popular media, Extension, and nonprofit organizations should be recognized as potential leaders to engage consumers in community education regarding reducing food waste for achieving multiple sustainability in ways that are locally relevant.

(3) Given that consumer's generally underestimate the amount of household food waste, research is called for to acquire accurate data regarding food waste quantities through community-based participatory approaches. For example, a citizen-science approach for monitoring food waste through food waste audits and participant journaling has the potential to enhance consumer food waste literacy while providing quantitative evidence regarding how households across geographic areas respond to food waste programming. Citizen science has been recognized to be a practical way to produce large longitudinal data sets ( Dickinson et al., 2010 ). Such a citizen science approach would require the management of big data through a large database that could continue to inform research priorities, food waste reduction targets, and other associated sustainability goals.

(4) Development and deployment of accessible, sensitive, and reliable hand-held food quality monitors for household use to determine food safety and produce freshness in order to better inform consumers regarding when food becomes unsafe to eat. The development of such technology requires cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration to develop biological and chemical sensors that can detect biomarkers of food freshness as well as pathogens ( Mustafa and Andreescu, 2018 ).

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Institutional Review Board at Montana State University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

SA and CB designed the study with input from Montana State University HELPS Lab. All authors contributed to implementing the survey tool and data interpretation. TW led the statistical analysis and creation of graphs and Supplementary Material . SA, ES, and AS wrote the manuscript with input from all. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (under Award Numbers P20GM103474 and P20GM104417), Montana IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (MT INBRE), the Human Ecology Learning and Problem Solving (HELPS) Lab at Montana State University, the National Science Foundation (under Award Number NSF RII Track-2 FEC OIA 1632810).

Author Disclaimer

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

Authors extend gratitude to the following organizations for assisting with survey distribution: MSU Extension, Montana 4-H Center for Youth Development, MT Department of Agriculture, NCAP, AERO, MT Farmers Union, Montana Organic Association, One Montana, Bozone, MT Food Bank Network.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.734785/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: food waste, household behavior, sustainability, food systems, place-based solutions, community education, consumer perceptions

Citation: Ahmed S, Stewart A, Smith E, Warne T and Byker Shanks C (2021) Consumer Perceptions, Behaviors, and Knowledge of Food Waste in a Rural American State. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:734785. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.734785

Received: 01 July 2021; Accepted: 20 August 2021; Published: 23 September 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Ahmed, Stewart, Smith, Warne and Byker Shanks. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Carmen Byker Shanks, cbykershanks@montana.edu

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Most food waste happens at home – new research reveals the best ways to reduce it

The EU and UK pledged to reduce food waste, in line with the UN’s goal to halve global food waste by 2030. With most (approximately 53%) of total food waste in European countries occurring in homes, this stage of the food chain presents the most significant challenge due to the need for widespread behaviour change.

Although consumer food waste is a complex issue influenced by factors such as people’s knowledge, habits, social norms and food supply chain efficiency, reducing household food waste is achievable.

Reduction of food waste can have multiple benefits, including conserving limited natural resources such as water, improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. My new research shows that reduction is possible with the right tools for behaviour change and consumer willingness to prevent food waste.

I was in a team of 15 researchers and practitioners with expertise in consumer food waste prevention, working with the European Consumer Food Waste Forum . We evaluated 78 interventions across the EU, UK and beyond .

A combination of different approaches is needed to significantly reduce consumer food waste – there’s no single thing that could change the way everyone deals with their food waste. Customised interventions to specific groups of consumers works best, especially when people are willing, engaged and actively involved in the process.

We identified which of the solutions resulted in the biggest reductions in consumer food waste and made recommendations to tackle the problem.

Here are five steps that can help reduce food waste in your household:

1. Find out the facts

Start by educating yourself and your family to raise your awareness and motivate you to make changes to your daily routine. Look online at environmental charity Wrap ( the Waste and Resources Action Programme ) for useful resources about the problem of food waste and its negative effects on our present and future.

Share this knowledge and experience with your family, including your children. Learn about the ways to prevent food waste at home, for example, how to store food to eat healthily with less waste and how to reuse leftovers.

2. Make small changes

Make simple adjustments to your routine at home. Try going shopping with a list to avoid buying food you don’t need and might not use, plan your meals to buy just the right amount of ingredients, check date labels on packaging to prioritise eating items that are closer to expiring and reuse leftovers to make sure every bit of edible food is consumed.

3. Get confident in the kitchen

Cook and eat at home more often to eat healthily and reduce food waste .

Sign up to a cooking class to develop your skills in a fun way. Learning to prepare food more efficiently or getting creative with leftovers will help you make the most of your ingredients and prevent waste.

4. Use visual reminders

Employ simple tools and prompts to remind you about sustainable switches that can be incorporated into daily life. Put a sticker on foods that are nearing expiration dates to use them first or take pictures of wasted food to put it on your fridge as a visual reminder of the negative impact of waste.

5. Mix it up

Combine various approaches to prevent food waste in a way that works best for you and keeps you on track. Follow online tips and advice from organisations such as Zero Waste Scotland and Hubbub , use food waste apps such as Kitche, Too Good To Go or Olio to share excess ingredients with neighbours.

You can also get involved with community programmes in your local area such as FareShare Yorkshire and Surplus2Purpose , an initiative that redistributes unwanted food stock to those who need it most.

By adopting some or all of these practices and encouraging others to do the same, you can contribute to a larger movement to reduce food waste and help promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits.

Gulbanu Kaptan was awarded research funding (with project partners WRAP and Zero Waste Scotland) from the UKRI ESRC for a project on reducing household food waste (2020-2022). She is a Co-investigator on a UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund project on ensuring food system resilience. Between 2021 and 2023, she worked as an expert member of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum.

This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

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Building new paths for responsible solid waste management

• Published: 24 June 2021
• Volume 193 , article number  442 , ( 2021 )

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• Maximilian Espuny   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3189-0355 1 ,
• Antonio Faria Neto 1 ,
• José Salvador da Motta Reis 1 ,
• Sérgio Tenório dos Santos Neto 1 ,
• Thais Vieira Nunhes 1 &
• Otávio José de Oliveira 1  

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The amount of solid waste produced across the planet in the past decade was 1.3 billion tons (1.2 kg/year per person). Also, the significant number of publications on solid waste management (SWM) draws attention to the importance of discussing the topic to improve public health and to mitigate environmental impacts. The objectives of this article are to identify the state of the art and the scientific gaps on SWM and to propose a framework to promote it in the coming years. For this, a content analysis was carried out with the support of a bibliometric study, considering articles published in the Scopus database. The field of SWM study was classified into 12 different themes, and from this division, it was sought to identify the evolution of each of them between the 2005 and 2018 period. Content analysis and bibliometric study indicate that thermal and biological treatments are a promising trend to improve the performance of SWM. Its most important applied contribution is the generation of qualified information about SWM that can support the decision-making of public and private managers to reduce environmental impacts and improve life in urban spaces. The main academic contribution of the paper is the articulation of the most important themes on SWM, identifying the individual impact of each one of them in this field of study and the indication of the scientific trends that should guide the development of future research.

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Paula Souza State Center for Technological Education (CEETEPS).

This study was financed by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) and CNPq. Proc. 312894 / 2017–1. São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [Grant numbers 2016/20160–0 and 2018/17537–0].

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Espuny, M., Faria Neto, A., da Motta Reis, J.S. et al. Building new paths for responsible solid waste management. Environ Monit Assess 193 , 442 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09173-0

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Researchers explore the deeper meanings of throwing out food in Russia

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Posted: 1 June 2018 | Daniel Birchmore (New Food) | No comments yet

New research has suggested rational behaviour is not the only thing that keeps Russians from throwing away food – many food-handling practices have been shaped by socio-cultural factors, including the gastronomic trauma suffered in times of famine and scarcity.

CULTURAL MEMORIES: The study was conducted at a university in Moscow

A pair of academics from the  National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow have studied some of the cultural attitudes towards food loss and waste in Russia.

Valeria Erguneva and Darya Asaturyan researchers interviewed Moscow residents aged 21 to 72 from diverse social backgrounds (employed, temporarily unemployed, students, pensioners, homemakers) to gain a better understanding of the meanings people attach to throwing out food and the psychological factors which come into play.

Reasons why people discard food vary from lack of planning of food shopping to poor food storage practices.

Unsure how much food they need to buy, very often, people make a poor estimate of other household members’ needs and preferences.

“Every now and then, you plan to buy, say, ten servings of some food and expect the other person to eat them all. But then it turns out they did not eat some of the food, and the leftovers get thrown out,” said a male student, aged 22.

Life transitions such as moving to a new place, e.g. from a village to a big city or away from one’s parents were also a common cause. Impulsive buying and throwing stuff away can feel like a newfound freedom for young people who have just moved away from their parents to live independently. People who relocate from rural communities to cities sometimes struggle with new waste management practices.

“When I lived in the village, food was never thrown away but given to pigs or dogs – those rural dogs are not like the spoilt city dogs here, they will eat almost everything. So we would never, ever dump food. When I moved here, I felt terrible throwing food away at first, but eventually one gets used to everything,” said a female owner of a hair salon, aged 33.

The researchers also examined why some people refuse to waste food and what they do instead and found a range of reasons and solutions.

Rational behaviour

Low-income households are forced to plan their consumption. According to the researchers, ‘such people buy exactly as much food as they find necessary to satisfy their physical needs’.

They said people raised in poverty and scarcity make sure no food goes to waste, avoiding food waste as an unproductive use of resources such as money, time and effort invested in shopping for food and cooking.

Subjects also showed a respect for other people’s labour which went into producing the food, dating back to Russian peasant traditions.

“No matter who purchased the food I have to throw out, I still feel sorry for the effort of those who produced the food and the money spent buying it,” said a male student and research assistant, aged 21.

Guilt and Trauma

Other reasons why people resent wasting food include sociocultural values, some of them specific to Russia .

Religious attitudes can stimulate frugal behaviour. “Food should be treated as sacred. Throwing away food, particularly bread, is a sin. People have traditionally believed so. It’s a sin to dump food,” said a retired male, watchman, aged 72.

Empathy with people from poorer countries, such as compassion for malnourished African children, or popular wisdom learned in childhood can also play a role.

“I never leave food on my plate. My mom used to say, don’t do it or you won’t find a wife,” said an engineer and postgraduate student, aged 26.

“Back in Soviet times, they taught me at school that bread is the staple of life and how much effort goes into growing and making it. These ideas are still very strong in me,” said a female owner of a foreign language school network, aged 38.

Perhaps the most important factor, according to the authors, is the ‘gastronomic trauma’ dating back to the years of hunger and scarcity during World War II, the post-war years, and the 1990s.

This memory encourages thrifty attitudes and prevents wasteful consumption in older and not-so-old generations of Russians.

“I often feel pangs of conscience [throwing out food] because it brings back childhood memories of my Grandmother,” said a stay-at-home mother, aged 27.

In addition to this, symbolically, throwing out certain foods can be particularly traumatic and cause stronger feelings. Such special foods include bread.

The researchers conclude that despite a reported transition to a consumerist society and the abundance of goods in stores, attitudes acquired in times of scarcity and poverty and passed down to younger generations can discourage wasteful food consumption which is perhaps specific of Russian consumer behaviour patterns.

Ethical consumption and avoidance of food waste are largely due to past traditions in Russia, as opposed to Western countries where they are driven by concerns for the environment and public good. In fact, poverty experienced now by a significant part of Russia’s population can discourage throwing out food but at the same time can be a barrier to environmentally-sound practices, since people seek to meet their basic needs before considering their environmental impact.

Related topics

Food Security , Food Waste , The consumer

Related organisations

National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) Moscow

Related regions

Asia Pacific & Oceania , Europe

Related people

Darya Asaturyan , Valeria Erguneva

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The 2024 ampang jaya community food waste composting education program organized by ikom, sutra & mpaj.

IKOM and SUTRA are hosting the 2024 Community Food Waste Composting Education Programme this week (26–30 August 2024) at the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) level. It aims to educate 200 local primary and secondary school students about sustainable food waste management. This initiative aligns with the National Hygiene Policy, which emphasizes waste reduction through recycling and composting as a pollution prevention measure within local communities.

A special thank you to Dr Irfana Kabir Ahmad for championing this important initiative.