Federal officials from the Dept of Ag., EPA, and FDA released a new strategy to reduce food waste and loss. The approach will help reduce emissions and hunger while also working to reduce climate change.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the White House recently announced the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics as part of federal government’s whole-of-government approach to tackle climate change, feed people, address environmental justice, and promote a circular economy.
The strategy provides tangible goals that the U.S. government partners, along with retailers and consumers, can work toward to help further prevent the loss and waste of food, increase recycling of food and other organic materials to support a more circular economy for all, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, save households and businesses money, and build cleaner, healthier communities.
Recent EPA research shows that 58% of methane emissions released to the atmosphere from landfills are from food waste. Each year in the U.S., food loss and waste create potent greenhouse gas pollutants equal to the emissions of 60 coal-fired power plants. The strategy aims to prevent and divert organic waste from landfills to reduce GHG emissions and highlights opportunities, especially where there are environmental justice concerns, to build community-scale organics recycling infrastructure, reduce pollution, and create jobs.
The strategy drives progress toward the National Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal to reduce the loss and waste of food by 50% by 2030. In 2021, EPA updated its U.S. baseline to align the 2030 goal with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, which aims to reduce the amount of food from food retail, food service, and households that has been removed from the human supply chain. In addition, this goal supports the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan because methane is both a powerful GHG and short-lived compared to carbon dioxide; achieving significant reductions to food loss and waste would have a rapid and significant effect on reducing GHG emissions.
The strategy highlights four objectives:
Objective 1: Prevent food loss.
Objective 2: Prevent food waste.
Objective 3: Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.
Objective 4: Support policies that incentivize and encourage the prevention of food loss and waste and organics recycling.
For more information about Food Loss and Waste Reduction check out:
