Sustainable Management of Food Graphics

Compost Your Food Scraps for a Healthier Planet

More than half of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills come from wasted food. Composting food scraps reduces emissions, and using compost helps build healthy soils.

• Decreases greenhouse gas emissions: Composting reduces methane emissions by keeping wasted food out of landfills. Applying compost to the soil reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, avoiding emissions from their manufacture and use.
• Builds Flood & Drought Resilience: Compost enables soil to better absorb and hold water, helping to reduce erosion and flooding in heavy rains and retain water during droughts.
• Sequesters carbon: When we apply compost to the land, carbon is stored in the soil instead of being released into the atmosphere.
• Enriches soil: Compost enhances soil health and plant growth; it slowly releases and retains nutrients in the soil, reducing nutrient runoff and protecting water quality.

How Wasting Food Generates Emissions

Up to 40% of food is wasted

Wasting food wastes more than food: The food supply chain is complex and generates significant green house gas emissions. When food is wasted, the resources used to grow, harvest, process, transport, store, and cook that food are wasted too.

Greeh ouse emissions generated:

• N2O
• CO2
• CH4

How food waste generates emissions:

• Soil management
• Manure management
• Enteric fermentation
• Transportation
• Energy use
• Refrigeration
• Fertilizers/pesticides
• Land use changes
• Rice farming

Each year, the emissions caused by wasted food in the U.S. are greater than the emissions from all domestic flights within the U.S. plus all international flights run by U.S. airlines.

50 Million Gas-Powered Passenger Vehicles

Wasting food in the U.S. causes greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 50 million gas-powered passenger vehicles.

Wasted Food

Wasted Food causes 58% of methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

In landfills, wasted food breaks down relatively quickly, generating methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – before landfill gas collection systems are in place.

Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste

What resources go into a year of food loss and waste in the U.S.? *excluding impacts of waste management, such as landfill methane emissions

• Greenhouse gas emissions of more than 42 coal-fired power plants
• Enough water and energy to supply more than 50 million homes
• The amount of fertilizer used in the U.S. to grow all plant-based foods for U.S. human consumption
• An area of agricultural land equal to California and New York

Learn more: www.epa.gov/land-research/farm-kitchen-environmental-impacts-us-food-waste

Cash in the Trash

By throwing away less food, your family of 4 could save up to $56 per week…

…What could you guy with money saved from wasting less food?

Benefits of Applying Compost

78% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when food waste is composted and land applied rather than landfilled

Land benefits:

• Reduced soil erosion
• Improved plant establishment & growth
• Improved nutrient management
• Enhanced suppression of weeds, pests & diseases
• Higher crop yield
• Enhanced ecosystem restoration
• Increased biodiversity

Climate Resilience benefits:

• Increased resilience to impacts from heat, drought, floods, wildfire, pests & diseases
• Improved resilience of water quality & water quantity
• Supports resilient & sustainable agriculture

Soil benefits:

• Reduced soil density & compaction
• Increased soil organic matter & fertility
• Improved soil water holding capacity and water infiltration & retention
• Higher populations of beneficial soil organisms
• Improved immobilization & degradation of pollutants in soil

Water benefits:

• Decreased stormwater runoff
• Reduced surface water pollution & groundwater contamination
• Improved water retention
• Increased groundwater recharge

>3x more carbon sequestration when food waste is composted and land applied rather than landfilled

Flow of Feedstocks through the Anaerobic Digestion System to Produce Biogas and Digestate

This graphic illustrates the flow of feedstocks through the anaerobic digestion system to produce biogas and digestate. Examples of feedstocks that go into an anaerobic digester:

• Manure (e.g., dairy, swine, beef, poultry).
• Wastewater Biosolids (e.g., municipal sewage sludge).
• Food Waste (e.g., household, restaurant, cafeteria, grocery, food production).
• Other Organics (e.g., energy crops, fats, oils, grease, crop residue, winery/brewery waste).

Feedstocks can be digested by anaerobic digestion singularly or in combination (co-digestion).

Anaerobic digestion produces two valuable outputs: biogas and digestate.

The energy in biogas can be used to provide heat and vehicle fuel as well as generate electricity, renewable natural gas, and bioproduct feedstock (e.g., bioplastics).

Digestate can be used for animal bedding, organic fertilizer, other products (e.g., building materials), crop irrigation, and horticulture products (e.g., soil amendment, peat moss replacement, plant pots).