Inside the Global Effort to Keep Perfectly Good Food Out of the Dump

In Seoul, trash cans automatically weigh the amount of food thrown into the trash. In London, grocery stores have stopped putting dates on fruits and vegetables to reduce confusion about what is still edible. California now requires supermarkets to give away — not throw away — foods that don’t sell but are still good to eat.

Around the world, efforts are underway to tackle two pressing global problems: hunger and climate change.

Food waste, when rotting in landfills, produces methane, which quickly heats the planet. But it’s a surprisingly difficult problem to solve.

That’s where Vue Vang, the superfluous, comes in. On a bright recent Monday morning, she pulled into a supermarket in Fresno, California, jumped out of her truck, and set out to rescue as much food as possible for the state. new laws – help store managers comply with rules many people still don’t know.

Presented to her was a cart of expiring hamburgers and cookies. She knew there had to be more. Within minutes, she convinced the staff to give her several cartons of milk marked “best” the next day, as well as buttermilk and boxes of brussel sprouts, kale, coriander, and cut melons. and corn. She nudged them: Are there eggs?

“A lot. Miss Vang, who works with a local charity, the Fresno Metro Department, to distribute food to those in need, whispered.

In the United States, the largest volume of material sent to landfills and incinerators is from food waste. Worldwide, food waste accounts for 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissionsat least twice the emissions from air. According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, that is enough food to feed more than a billion people.

Amid the growing urgency to slow global warming, governments and entrepreneurs are coming up with various ways to waste less food. In the United States, one startup makes it easy for people to buy misshapen products that grocery stores don’t want, and another has developed an invisible vegetable coating to help keep fruits and vegetables healthy. plants stay fresh longer. A Kenyan Entrepreneurs have built solar-powered refrigerators to help farmers preserve produce longer.

In Asia, Europe and the United States, some mobile application Discounts on restaurant dishes are coming soon. Last year, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, started “Clean Disk” Campaigncalls for an end to “shocking and distressing” food waste, even being strict with video bloggers who eat too much food in front of the camera.

All these disparate efforts point to a disconnect in the modern global food system: A lot of food is produced but not eaten, even when people are hungry.

California’s law is the most ambitious in the United States. Grocery store is Request a donation for groups like Ms. Vang “the maximum amount of food that can be eaten or else will be dealt with”, otherwise soon face fines. In addition, each city and county must reduce the organic waste going to landfills by 75% by 2025 and use compost instead.

Fresno County, where Vang works, is home to dairy farms and almond groves, and has one of the highest rates of hunger in California. Twenty-three percent of children in the county are not always have enough food.

As soon as Ms. Vang left the store that day, a store manager was stuffing liter bottles of milk in the garbage bag. “Are all these going to the trash?” she asked. They did. They have just expired.

Disposing of crops that have been planted, watered, harvested, packed, and shipped is a relatively new issue in human history. For centuries, people have used everything they can: banana stalks, vegetable peels, carrots that grow twisted in the ground.

Today, 31% of food is get a raiseshipping or sold is wasteful.

The problem of food waste is not just one problem, but many. Sometimes it’s a matter of refrigeration (milk goes bad during a power outage) or a supermarket’s strict standards (no hard carrots) or poor human planning (greens are neglected and turned out). slime in the fridge) or huge servings at a restaurant. According to ReFED, a nonprofit focused on reducing food waste, 70% of food thrown away in the United States comes from food that has been paid for, but not eaten.

Overall, one-third of the US food supply is depleted, according to Environmental Protection Agency.

REFRESH estimate Food waste emissions, from farm to fork to landfill, are equivalent to the emissions of 72 coal-fired power plants.

Like California, some US states are trying to solve part of this problem with mandatory composting measures. If California is successful, it could reduce emissions the equivalent of taking three million cars off the road, according to CalRecycle, the state’s waste disposal agency. Compost is extremely useful for soil improvement, and the compost market is reeling from drought.

“It’s a big deal,” said Rachel Machi Wagoner, director of CalRecycle. “We’re trying to turn waste into a resource.”

But that only solves a small part of the problem. Incubate orange peels and eggshells as well. But it doesn’t solve the problem of the quarter sandwich left on the plate, or the tomato being tossed because there’s too much left on the supermarket shelf. As Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED, has pointed out, it is a significant waste of water, land, fertilizer, diesel and refrigerant, along with heavy manual labor.

“It’s better not to produce it if you know it won’t be eaten,” she said. “To do that requires redesigning the systems. It’s not as easy as throwing something in the bin.”

There are doggy bags; no date label

Supermarket chains in the UK are starting to remove the date labels on their products after research showed that their inclusion makes it perfectly fine for people to trash their food. Elsewhere in Europe, France now requires supermarkets and large food vendors to donate food that is still safe to eat, and in Spain, a proposed law would require restaurants to offer things that are relatively common: dog bag for leftovers.

Then there is South Korea, where a campaign against food waste was born nearly 20 years ago out of necessity. The country’s narrow hilly lands have left no room for landfills. The government has decided to no longer have food waste in landfills.

Today, most organic waste is turned into animal feed and compost and more recently into biogas. Also pay the price for waste. Koreans pay for what they roll out.

In the latest test, the government has launched trash cans equipped with radio-frequency identification sensors to accurately weigh the amount of food waste each household throws away each month. If people don’t have sensor-equipped trash cans, they have to buy separate biodegradable food waste bags, which makes the cost even higher.

One Sunday afternoon, in the garbage room of an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Seoul, the sensors worked. A man opens a bin by swiping his card, emptying the trash can and returning home. One woman said the high-tech bins saved her the hassle of having to buy special bags for leftovers.

Suyeol Hong, who lives in the complex and is also one of the country’s most prominent food waste campaigners, says the new bin has helped keep the room cleaner, with less odor. However, while South Korea’s policy to divert food waste from landfills has reduced methane emissions, he notes, it hasn’t really changed habits. Much food is still wasted, especially at restaurants, where banchan – a kind of side dish served for free – is often left on the table at the end of the meal, he said. Attempts to get people to pay for banchan have not been popular.

“I don’t think reducing food waste in Korea is easy,” said Mr. Hong. Even as his family cleans out the fridge, he adds, there’s bound to be an extra rice cake from a vacation so long ago, packed for the compost bin.

However, Korea has made improvements. According to Ko Un Kim of the Seoul Institute, a research group affiliated with the city government, food waste has decreased from nearly 3,400 tons/day in 2010 to 2,800 tons/day in 2019.

Detour from the dump

In addition to composting, California’s food waste law is unusual in the United States for prompting retailers to donate edible but unsold food. (Washington has a similar law Go into effect in 2025.) Food waste campaigners are lobbying Congress to put money into next year’s U.S. farm bill to help state and local governments enact rescue measures. similar food.

Challenges are taking place across California.

Many cities do not yet provide compost bins for households. Many people with compost bins don’t know what’s in it and what isn’t. Boiled chicken bones. Dog poop bags are not – even if poop is contained in so-called compostable bags, it is not always compostable.

“It drives me crazy,” says CalRecycle’s Wagoner.

More composting facilities will have to be built, which is difficult in urban areas. And composting can sometimes have the opposite effect. One behavioral science research found that when people know their food waste will be composted, they are more likely to waste it.

Ms. Vang, the lead lead for the Fresno Metro Department’s food-sharing program, is less than 5 feet-2 tall. But in the back rooms of the supermarket, she is a massive presence.

She started rescuing food almost 5 years ago, when a farmer called the ministry and said he had tomatoes he couldn’t sell. Just then, a landfill manager called in after a garbage truck showed up with perfect bananas.

It was only when Mrs. Vang saw those mountains of food that she began to understand how much she was wasted. It hit her hard, she said, because a lot of her neighbors couldn’t afford the things that were being dumped. “We are a big farming town, but a lot of people lack healthy eating,” she said.

Demand has increased sharply. The first is due to the coronavirus. Then there is inflation. Sometimes people stop her when they see her food truck passing by. College student. Farmer. Ordinary people can use one hand.

She understands. She is a mother of four children. “I know,” said Mrs. Vang. “Buying groceries is hard.”

John Yoon contributed from Seoul and Vivian Wang from Beijing.