Food Waste Intelligence

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has released an easy-to-use calculator that allows foodservice operations and others to calculate the methane emissions they’ve avoided by preventing food waste going to landfill.

When food decomposes in the landfill, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. According to the EPA, wasted food causes 58 percent of methane emissions from landfills.

Methane–and food waste’s contribution to it–has become a primary target in the fight against climate change. This is because it is  a short-lived gas; it breaks down in the atmosphere in just 12 years. Reducing methane emissions can have a significant near-term impact, something the planet desperately needs.

Project Drawdown, a non-profit that researches and promotes climate solutions, ranked food waste prevention as the most actionable remedy to climate change. The potential reduction in methane emissions was part of its rationale. 

The new EPA calculator helps foodservice organizations and others better understand their contribution to climate mitigation. 

While food waste prevention–actually stopping food waste from being generated to begin with–is not the only way to avoid sending food to the landfill, it is the most effective. That is because it not only avoids the “downstream” emissions from landfill, it also avoids the “upstream” emissions from the production of that food, which can be particularly substantial from foods like beef.

Composting, for instance, can also keep food out of landfills, but it does not avoid the upstream emissions. And while it doesn’t produce the methane landfilled food generates, it does produce carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas.

Leanpath allows foodservice kitchens to prevent food waste from the start. To learn more about the environmental benefits prevention accrues, download our free e-book Why Food Waste Prevention Should be Your Top Sustainability Initiative.