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WASTED FOOD
EPA FOOD RECOVERY HIERARCHY How to Prevent Wasted Food Through Source Reduction 
Food Recovery Hierarchy Original article: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy Peter Burgess COMMENTARY This text is from the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about the Food Recovery Hierarchy. Food has an essential role in human life as well as being an important part of the economic system, not to mention having a big impact on the environment. Food ... that is the various foods ... are products. A variety of processes produce food ... agriculture produces food, as do a variety of food processing industries. The production, processing, transport and distribution of food are all part of the economic system. Major corporate organizations as well as small businesses are part of the food supply chain. Food is also culture, and forms a part of society and its norms. Food is both basic and the basis for important rituals and celebrations. The TVM framework for analysis has been structured so that every aspect of the complex food cycle is incorporated in the metrics. A high performance food is one in which there is a high positive impact on society (people), a low degradation ... better yet, an improvement ... of the environment, and an economic value add. The Food Recovery Hierarchy is an initiative from the EPA that is aiming to make the best possible use of the waste associated with the Food Cycle. There is a high degree of compatability between this hierarchy and the TVM framing of progress and performance. Additional commentary added December 2022 The section headed 'Success Stories Disclaimer of Endorsement:' in the text below is interesting and bothers me. It seems to be an example of bureacratic 'double speak' that enables something to be said without having any requirement to stand by what is being said ... in other words a legal double standard. Over the years I have become more and more annoyed by the use of 'law' to escape responsibility, not to mention the use of 'law' to excuse and justify the most abominable of behaviors. Peter Burgess | ||
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About the Food Recovery Hierarchy
The Food Recovery Hierarchy prioritizes actions organizations can take to prevent and divert wasted food. Each tier of the Food Recovery Hierarchy focuses on different management strategies for your wasted food. The top levels of the hierarchy are the best ways to prevent and divert wasted food because they create the most benefits for the environment, society and the economy.
Food Recovery Hierarchy Triangle in Six Steps. Top (most preferred) to bottom (least preferred):
Benefits
Food Loss Prevention Tip Sheets Are you a restaurant, university, grade school, manufacturer or grocery store looking to prevent food loss and waste? Check out the suggestions EPA compiled to help get you started. Conduct a Waste Audit Learn about what flows through your kitchen by measuring the amount, type, and reason for the generation of wasted food. Knowing how much and why wasted food is generated will help to create effective wasted food prevention strategies. It will also help to identify wasted food that is avoided and money saved. This analysis is called a waste audit. Depending on your goals, there are a variety of free EPA tools available to conduct a waste audit. With the results of your waste audit, you are ready to take the next steps below. Implement Reduction Habits Preventing wasted food is a matter of implementing better habits:
You will gain visibility for your efforts, have the opportunity for recognition, gain access to tools and resources, and learn how other organizations in your sector are preventing and reducing wasted food. Find out more and how to join. Success Stories Disclaimer of Endorsement: Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Quicken Loans Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio implemented a successful food scrap recovery program in conjunction with other nearby venues such as Browns Stadium, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and Progressive Field. By tracking their kitchen waste daily, they managed to reduce their monthly food composted from an average of 3.5 tons down to an average of 1.5 tons. Quicken Loans Arena also composted over 30 tons of food 2011. Hannaford Supermarkets Hannaford Supermarkets is a full service grocer with 179 stores in the New England region. As a part of their commitment to sustainability and providing the best food to their customers, they implemented wasted food prevention strategies to reduce the amount of surplus food generated. Strategies include fresh truck deliveries every day instead of forecasting out orders and a computer-assisted ordering to order appropriately based on inventory and sales predictions. University of Texas at Austin University of Texas at Austin audited plate waste during lunch and dinner for five days in Spring 2008. They found students leaving an average of 5.7 ounces of edible food on their plates. Food service staff worked in the front of house to engage the students with signage and by visualizing their daily waste with symbolic trash bins. Taste testing also allowed the students to sample menu items before taking the dish. This required coordination with the back of the house, where staff were also trained on portion control and tracking of pre and post consumer waste. In Fall 2008, another plate audit was conducted- this time showing only 3.9 ounces of wasted food that was edible. Then by going tray-less, the amount of food wasted went down again in Fall 2009 for a total 48 percent reduction. ------------------------------------------------ Reduce Wasted Food By Feeding Hungry People On this page:
We can be leaders in our communities by collecting unspoiled, healthy food and donating it to our neighbors in need. By donating food, we’re feeding people, not landfills, supporting local communities, and saving all the resources that went into producing that food from going to waste. Basics Interested in Establishing a Food Donation Program? Check out the Recycling Works in Massachusetts program’s web page on donationEXIT. The page offers a broad overview on the structure of successful food donation programs and provides detailed information on how to accomplish key steps of a food donation effort. Anyone Can Be a Food Donor Large manufacturers, supermarket chains, wholesalers, farmers, food brokers, and organized community food drives typically give food to food banks. Restaurants, caterers, corporate dining rooms, hotels, and other food establishments promptly distribute perishable and prepared foods to hungry people in their communities. Many food banks and food rescue organizations will pick up food donations free of charge, saving donors time and money. Legal Basics Corporate donors are protected from liability under the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (PDF)(2 pp, 207K, About PDF). Under this Act, as long as the donor has not acted with negligence or intentional misconduct, the company is not liable for damage incurred as the result of illness. USDA’s Frequently Asked Questions about the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (PDF) (3 pp, 240 K, About PDF) provides more information on the Act. Learn more from the Global Food Donation Policy Atlas’ United States Legal Guide - Food Donation Law and Policy (PDF)EXIT (25 pp, 1.71MB, About PDF) and the University of Arkansas' Food Recovery – a legal guide (PDF)EXIT (12 pp, 8.44MB, About PDF). Safety Basics Looking for International Information on Donating Food? Check out the Global Food Donation Policy AtlasEXIT, which provides information on the current state of food donation laws and policies in participating countries. Many non-perishable and unspoiled perishable foods can be donated to local food banks, soup kitchens, pantries, and shelters if the transaction is managed properly. Check with your local food bank or food rescue operation to find out what items they will accept. Learn more about Food Safety BasicsEXIT or contact your state or local health department for more information on how to safely donate food. More information on food safety can be found in Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic’s Food Safety Regulations & Guidance for Food Donations: A Fifty-State Survey of State Practices (PDF)EXIT (38 pp, 1.24MB, About PDF). Tax Benefits There are potential tax benefits for companies that donate food. See Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic’s Federal Enhanced Tax Deduction for Food Donation, a Legal GuideEXIT for information on enhanced tax deductions available to businesses donating food. How to Donate Food IMAGE donation image of girl and dad Where to Donate Food pantries, food banks and food rescue programs are available across the country to collect food and redistribute it to those in need. Food banks are community-based, professional organizations that collect food from a variety of sources and save the food in warehouses. The food bank then distributes the food to hungry families and individuals through a variety of emergency food assistance agencies, such as soup kitchens, youth or senior centers, shelters and pantries. Most food banks tend to collect nonperishable foods such as canned goods because they can be stored for a longer time. Food rescue organizations operate food rescue programming, which includes the retrieval of excess food from donors and/or the delivery of donated food directly to clients or to other organizations that redistribute food to clients. These organizations may also offer other programming, such as education/skills training and the repurposing of donated food into meals or other food products, etc., and many of them apply software solutions, like apps, to coordinate the redistribution of excess food by volunteers or other organizations. IMAGE little girl and woman at food donation drive Ideas for Increasing Food Donations in Your Community
Check out the Food Stewards Toolkit to learn more about how your organization can reduce wasted food by modifying food purchases, donating, composting, getting others involved, and sharing your story. Find Food Recipient Organizations The following sites contain tools that allow users to search for food banks, pantries, soup kitchens and shelters that may be interested in accepting wholesome, excess food:
------------------------------------------------ Reduce Wasted Food by Feeding Animals On this page
Legal Basics Be sure you know how to handle your food scraps properly. Refer to the Swine Health Protection Act. Leftovers for Livestock: A Legal Guide for Using Excess Food as Animal FeedEXIT , written by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and the Food Recovery Project at the University of Arkansas, describes different federal and state laws, regulations and requirements for feeding food scraps to animals. The guide also offers suggestions to generators of food scraps and animal feeding operations. Regulations vary in each state. Some states ban food donation for animal feed. Other states regulate what can be donated (often no meat or dairy). For example, businesses cannot donate coffee grounds and foods high in salt as they can harm animals. Donating Food Scraps to Animals
Rutgers University Rutgers University in New Jersey is a leader in keeping food scraps out of the landfill. The dining halls at Rutgers partners with a local farm, Pinter Farms. Pinter Farms collects about one ton of food scraps every day from Rutgers' four main dining halls and feeds it to the farm’s hogs and cattle. Diverting food scraps to Pinter Farms costs Rutgers half the price of sending the scraps to the landfill. View a fact sheet about Rutgers' program. MGM Resorts International MGM Resorts International has been reducing wasted food going to landfills since 2007. Many of their food scraps from Las Vegas Strip properties go to RC Farms, a pig farm with 3,000 pigs. RC Farms follows state requirements by cooking food scraps first before feeding them to the pigs. Learn more about MGM Resorts efforts in this article on Biocycle's website EXIT. ------------------------------------------------ Industrial Uses for Wasted Food On this page
Anaerobic Digestion Anaerobic digestion is a process where microorganisms break down organic materials, such as food scraps, manure, and sewage sludge. This is done in the absence of oxygen. Recycling wasted food through anaerobic digestion produces biogas and a soil amendment, two valuable products. Wasted food can be processed at facilities specifically designed to digest the organic portion of municipal solid waste. It can also be co-digested at wastewater treatment plants and manure digesters. Learn more about anaerobic digestion. What are industrial uses of fats, oil, and grease? Liquid fats and solid meat products are materials that should not be sent to landfills or disposed of in the sanitary sewer system. Fats, oils, and grease can clog pipes and pumps both in the public sewer lines as well as in wastewater treatment facilities. This prevents combined sewer overflows, which protects water quality and lowers bills. Fats, oil and grease should be sent to the rendering industry to be made into another product, converted to biofuels, or sent to an anaerobic digester.
Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority The Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority operates the Wastewater Reclamation Facility (WRF) in Des Moines, Iowa, which is home to six, 2.7 million-gallon anaerobic digesters. The WRF operates one of the largest hauled waste receiving programs in the nation, accepting over 60 truckloads per day, most of which is commercial fats, oils, & grease; food waste; and high-strength organic waste from various industrial processing facilities across a four-state region. These organic-based hauled wastes are mixed and co-digested with municipal sludge, which produces two products: biogas and biosolids. In 2017, the WRF generated an average of over 2.1 million cubic feet of biogas per day. Currently, the biogas/biomethane is used onsite to heat boilers and to fuel two, 1.4-megawatt engine generators. A portion of the biogas is also sold to a nearby industrial facility for boiler fuel. Soon, the WRF will begin diverting all of its purified biomethane to the local natural gas pipeline utility. Biosolids extracted from the anaerobic digesters are recycled back into the environment via land application, which returns valuable macro- and micronutrients back into the soil of the surrounding agricultural land. Purdue University Purdue University turns wasted food into renewable energy by partnering with the City of West Lafayette to send food waste to the local wastewater treatment plant. At the wastewater treatment plant, the food is added to the anaerobic digester, where it is processed by microbes to generate biogas, a source of renewable energy, and a solid residual that can be used as a soil amendment. Learn more about this partnership from the City of West Lafayette presentation about its waste to energy efforts. The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh started turning organic materials into renewable energy in fall 2011 with a dry fermentation anaerobic digester. The first of its kind in the nation, this facility uses agricultural plant waste, City of Oshkosh yard waste, and wasted food generated on campus to produce biogas. The digester produces enough energy to power up to 10 percent of the 13,500-student institution. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) in Oakland, CA was the first wastewater treatment plant in the nation to convert post-consumer food scraps to energy via anaerobic digestion. Waste haulers collect post-consumer wasted food from local restaurants and markets and take it to EBMUD. In an anaerobic digester, bacteria break down the wasted food and release methane as a byproduct. EBMUD then captures the methane and uses it as a renewable source of energy to power the treatment plant. After the digestion process, the leftover material can be composted and used as a natural fertilizer. ------------------------------------------------ Reducing the Impact of Wasted Food by Feeding the Soil and Composting On this page
What is Compost? Gardeners and farmers add compost to soil to improve its physical properties. They may even use compost instead of soil to grow plants. Mature compost is a stable material with a content called humus that is dark brown or black and has a soil-like, earthy smell. Compost is created by:
There are a number of benefits to compost that not everyone is aware of. Some examples are listed below: Additional Information Find out more about these benefits in the following publications: Innovative Uses of Compost fact sheet series
It is important to know the composting process before beginning composting or starting a composting program.
Use EPA’s Tribal Green Building Toolkit to integrate or improve on composting in your community. The Toolkit, made available to the public in 2015, is designed to help tribal officials, community members, planners, developers and architects develop and adopt building codes to support a variety of green building practices, including composting. Read about how Tribal composting nourishes land and tradition in EPA’s Tribal Waste Journal (PDF)(28 pp, 964 K, About PDF) . The Journal contains case studies of composting projects in different Tribal communities. Learn more about composting practices, benefits, marketing, policy and regulations by referring to BioCycle EXIT, which is an organics recycling magazine, and the U.S. Composting CouncilEXIT, which posts free articles and reports on composting. The Institute for Self-Reliance’s July 2014 report, Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community CompostingEXIT, describes successful community composting initiatives, their benefits, tips for replication, key start-up steps, and the need for private, public, and nonprofit sector support. Composting Legal Basics for Businesses and Organizations Landfill Bans on Organics Some states have bans on landfill disposal of organic materials like wasted food. The U.S. Composting Council compiles information on state compost regulationsEXIT. Biosolids Composting and Use or Disposal of Sewage Sludge The Clean Water Act covers land application, surface disposal, and combustion of biosolids sewage sludge as well as biosolids composting. EPA published federal standards for the use or disposal of sewage sludge, which can be found in title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in part 503. Many of the standards in this rule may apply to municipal solid waste compost. More information can be found on EPA’s Biosolids website. Success Stories Disclaimer of Endorsement: Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. New Seasons Markets New Seasons Markets operates 12 stores in the Pacific Northwest and strives to support the local economy and sustainable agriculture. Since 2006, New Seasons Market has increased diversion of organic materials, including food waste to compost by 109 percent. Since 2011, they have diverted more than 2,410 tons of food from landfills and saved more than $25,000 in waste expenses. Find out more in the case study about New Seasons Market's food donation and composting initiatives. Petco Park Petco Park, home to the San Diego Padres, implemented a food composting program in 2005 helping the venue to save money on its trash disposal bills. In 2011, Petco Park diverted 164 tons from landfill, saving $75,000 since 2005. Learn more from the 2012 presentation on their efforts. Middlebury College Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont initiated a food waste composting program in 1993. Middlebury College used to haul the food scraps offsite, but now have a site on campus where they compost 90 percent of the food waste generated or 370 tons in 2011. In 2011, Middlebury saved over $100,000 in landfill fees by recycling and composting. Learn more in this Biocycle article EXIT. Sprouts Farmers Markets Sprouts is committed to zero food waste, taking responsibility for preserving the resources that go into getting food from farm to store including the soil, water, packaging and transportation. To combat hunger and reduce food waste, in 2015, all Sprouts stores donated more than 14 million pounds of fresh food to local hunger relief agencies through their Food Rescue Program. Sprouts also diverted another 5.5 million pounds of food to composting facilities and to local farms to feed animals. By working with the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge and organizations like Feeding America, Sprouts is able to reduce the impact of hunger in their communities and contribute to a cleaner environment. Pearl City High School During the 2014 – 2015 school year, Special Education students at Pearl City High School in partnership with Mindy Jaffe, owner of Waikiki Worm Co., staffed wasted food collection stations in the school cafeteria. Unconsumed food was separated from non-food waste, diverting the potentially-wasted food from the general school trash stream. The fruits, vegetables, and selected starches were fed to composting worms and the remaining wasted food was hot composted, creating nutrient rich, organic products used in gardens in the community. This initiative resulted in 34,635 pounds of cafeteria scraps being composted on site over the school year, and a 97.5 percent wasted food diversion rate overall. Stormwater Best Management Practices Compost-based stormwater best management practices (BMPs) combine two important EPA initiatives: Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater regulations. These compost-based BMPs, which include compost blankets, compost filter berms, and compost filter socks, provide particularly effective stormwater treatment when used in construction and post-construction stormwater BMPs. Why Should You use Compost BMPs?
The compost BMPs consist of three methods for using compost to improve water quality. These methods reduce the amount of stormwater that can enter waterways by increasing the amount of water that can infiltrate the soil. They do so through the creation of barriers that stop the water from flowing or cover the soil completely. The three compost BMPs include:
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| The text being discussed is available at | https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy and |