How does the government deal with food waste in the United States?

Generally, we want to believe that our own government is doing nothing, but good for us. At the same time, we do not know the bigger picture behind closed doors of the government and the specifics of their actions, as well as their intentions. With food waste being a worldwide issue that not only affects us, it also has environmental and economic consequences on the Earth as a whole. This includes food waste being the third greatest greenhouse gas emitter after the United States and having a consumption volume that is three times the amount of Lake Geneva which is approximately 21.35 cubic miles. It may not personally seem like a conflict to the individual when presented with some thrown out produce, but it is an issue that must be tackled under the responsibility of the United States government due to their high position and possessing a great deal of power in society when it comes to dictating decisions.

Government, business, and nonprofit leaders have taken action in support of stopping food waste in the “Journal of Cleaner Production.” (Mourad) These leaders “…gathered in conferences such as the first “Zero Food Waste Forum” (ZFWF) organized by environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council or NRDC in California in 2014, and the second ZFWF, partly led by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council, in Texas in 2015 (Interview 127).” (Mourad) These events and conferences allow upper authorities to come together to discuss a social issue that affects the whole country. These leaders have discussed practices such as local regulations for food waste and campaigns for further spreading awareness. An example would be the “Food Recovery Challenge,” by the Environmental Protection Agency or the EPA from the United States federal government in 2010 where they had pledged to enhance food management practices and then announce the details of their results.

One of the catalysts of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s strategies on reducing food waste was their creation of the Food Recovery Hierarchy. In this article, “Commercial and Anti-Hunger Sector Views on Local Government Strategies for Helping to Manage Food Waste,” (Otten, Diedrich, Getts, Benson) it focuses more on how the top methods would be food-generating businesses and anti-hunger agencies. These methods would allow for food insecure people and families to be well fed as well as putting use towards food that would have been thrown away and wasted as outlined in the EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy, a chart that shows the most to the least preferred methods of dealing with food waste. This chart can definitely impact those who want to take a step towards reducing food waste, but have no idea where to start. It plays as a foundation on what are the best solutions for those who may be inexperienced and is easy to follow. When worst comes to worst of disposing food in landfills as the least preferred method on the chart, it can show the viewer what they should try to avoid the most.

Programs such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency or the USDA of the United States federal executive department was the first to announce the United State’s first ever food waste reduction goal to be fulfilled by 2030. One of the ways they had spread awareness was by using a “…mobile app to help consumers safely store food and understand food date labels, a new guidance for manufacturers and importers on donating misbranded or sub-spec foods and research on innovative technologies to make reducing food loss/waste more cost effective.” (Fatka) An app like this would be useful for acknowledging people on how businesses get people to quickly buy out their food before the sell by date. The dates printed on products are most likely not the actual dates for when the product will go bad or become soiled, but used as a tactic to make quick and easy money by supermarkets. 

Individual states also have their own programs and laws being passed by to help enforce reduction of food waste. One of them includes Vermont’s Legislature with their Universal Recycling Law. This law advocates separation of waste and promotes recycling where if businesses made at least two tons of food waste a week, then they would have to put in the extra time and work to separate the scraps into groups. With the creation of this law in 2014, it was able to become effective enough that, “By 2020, the law applies to everyone for any amount, including residents and regardless of distance from a processor.” (Karidis) Even if food waste does occur within business, restaurants, etc., this law would be useful in assisting in reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfills. Recycling can also help with pollution issues as well. Also with this law being acknowledged about its use in the future, it can drastically change people’s actions and improve the effects of food waste.

Households also play a role in food waste where it has been discovered that in 2010, twenty one percent of food had been wasted in households in the United States. To help this issue, “…a number of counties and U.S. localities have instituted policies (disposal taxes) directed toward reducing this waste. However, currently there is no federal food-waste disposal tax.” (Katare, Bhagyashree, Dmytro Serebrennikov, H. Holly Wang, and Michael Wetzstein) Nevertheless, there are still bills such as the Food Recovery Act passed by Congress that grants money to increase awareness and increase tax deductions for food donations. With this bill, it will greatly assist the United States and the United Nations in reducing food waste by fifty percent by 2030. With more bills, similar to this one, it can help spread more awareness on how to reduce food waste and provide more recognition for food waste reduction programs.

Although the efforts of the United States government are being acknowledged, there are acts that have been doing the exact opposite of the goals of reducing food waste. With the city council in Oakland, California putting certain rules of having to compost any excess food that are mandatory on restaurants, it bindes owners to regulations that they are obligated to follow. Of course, when customers order food, most do not finish everything, leading to the garbage afterwards. Restaurants in Oakland have found that “…composting food waste found those services were now far more expensive under the city’s new mandatory contract.” (Linnekin) When there is such a thing as composting, you have no excuse to prevent throwing out food in the trash as it is better for the environment anyways. However, when you have to pay thousands of dollars compared to just throwing out food, it seems like a meaningless method. Even when composting seems like an enhanced procedure of disposing food in the garbage, food from composting eventually ends up in the same area as those from the sanitation trucks. All of this food waste have different journeys, but have the same final conclusion of being left in landfills of unnecessary space usage.

A common practice during the production of produce, contributing to food waste is known as overproduction. When there is an abundant amount of desire or high demand for a specific food item or produce, it causes farmers to over produce that certain item. Farmers end up doing this because of the Farm Bill or the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 2014 created by the United States federal government where it “…has evolved in form and function since the 1930s and now provides extensive financial protections to farmers that often have the opposite effect.” (Evans, Nagele) The Farm Bill was first introduced in 1933 as a way to stabilize farming markets and do the exact opposite of what it is now, which was to have farmers not over produce. Since the Farm Bill has now provided benefits for farmers with crop insurance, protecting them from crop loses and other revenues, farmers now feel more secure when wasting crops during high demand. They can feel safe when planting numerous acres of crops without the guilt of losing both food and mostly money. They also feel more entitled and motivated when wasting food due to the amount of income they receive based on the amount of acres they plant. More food waste means more money when working as a farmer. With bills like these, farmers do not feel accountable to all this food being wasted when it can be used to feed food insecure families, or those in third world developing countries. It makes me wonder if such bills or acts should be vetoed in the near future if the government really does worry about the consequences of food waste.

An interview with food waste fighter and author, Jonathan Bloom by the Food Tank reveals a possible cause to why most food waste happens within the United States. He proposes the reason to be “That is largely driven by the reality that food is cheap in the U.S. No other nation spends as little of their budget on edibles.” (Bloom) With the United States spending the bare minimum on food, people do not feel as much remorse when wasting food. The prices on food such as fast food is relatively cheap as well which tends to give people the mindset that it is okay to throw it out when they are unable to finish something. Bloom also says how when disposing food away, it “disappears.” You never have to face that piece of food again when it is in the trash or when it ends up in landfills. This gives the impression that people are somewhat running away from their problems or in this case, food waste. Unless inflation under the government dramatically affects food prices, people will remain to have this “It is okay.” mentality. 

There are tons of programs and bills that are formed to help put an end or at least decrease food waste within the United States. Most are under the government’s creation or control and have positive intentions when deciding when their goal may be accomplished in the future. They have great plans such as federal food-waste disposal taxes and more that can hopefully be incorporated. Although this is true, we should still think about why these programs or bills are even necessary in the United States. Considering the United States is famous for obesity and excessive eating, we can see that it is easy for one to order or purchase too much food. It makes it even more accessible for people when most food here is incredibly cheap. This is similar to overproduction in factories and farms where there is too many of a specific produce, leading to produce often getting lost or wasted. Food from these conflicts can be given to other unfortunate people who are not lucky enough to have access to food, nevermind excess food. These programs or bills also prove to be detrimental at times and perform differently than what they government had expected or what they had intended to do. They can urge people to have no desire to even help the community when dealing with food waste. A slow rise in food waste can be expected to happen if these rules are still intact and in effect, making it controversial if these rules should even exist. If food waste continues to increase, it can easily contribute to global warming due to the immense release of greenhouse gases(carbon footprint) as well as the amount of water being absorbed(blue water footprint) from uneaten produce. Nevertheless, we should feel obligated to question if the government is heading in the right direction when leading our nation because eventually the consequences of food waste will affect us all detrimentally. 

Sources:

• Karidis, Arlene. “A Look at How Governments Are Tackling Food Waste (Part Three).” Waste360, 14 June 2019, https://www.waste360.com/food-waste/look-how-governments-are-tackling-food-waste-part-three.
• Katare, Bhagyashree, Dmytro Serebrennikov, H. Holly Wang, and Michael Wetzstein. “Social-Optimal Household Food Waste: Taxes and Government Incentives.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 99.2 (2017): 499-509. Web.
• Jennifer J. Otten, Sara Diedrich, Katherine Getts, and Christine Benson. “Commercial and Anti-Hunger Sector Views on Local Government Strategies for Helping to Manage Food Waste.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 8.B (2018): 55-72. Web.

• Mourad, Marie. “Recycling, Recovering and Preventing “food Waste”: Competing Solutions for Food Systems Sustainability in the United States and France.” Journal of Cleaner Production 126 (2016): 461-77. Web.
• Linnekin, Baylen. “How Government Encourages Food Waste: Baylen Linnekin.” FEE Freeman Article, Foundation for Economic Education, 15 Aug. 2016, https://fee.org/articles/how-government-encourages-food-waste/.

• Evans, Alexandra I., and Robin M. Nagele. “A LOT TO DIGEST: ADVANCING FOOD WASTE POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES.” Natural Resources Journal, Winter 2018, p. 177+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A563359636/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=c61bad7e. Accessed 23 Oct. 2019.
• Fatka, Jacqui. “U.S. takes food waste challenge.” Feedstuffs, 28 Sept. 2015, p. 9. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A430963904/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=87d7f722. Accessed 23 Oct. 2019.on=13&docId=GALE%7CA430963904&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&contentSet=GALE%7CA430963904&searchId=R1&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true
• Walmsley, Thea, et al. “Food Waste Fighter: An Interview with Jonathan Bloom.” Food Tank, 2 Dec. 2016, https://foodtank.com/news/2013/06/food-waste-fighter-an-interview-with-jonathan-bloom/?fbclid=IwAR10mg4XB_DnCFZc-yU7IcTi9K0ludLzZZ_S56GZPMaHq5jQhAqlF4kbVwE.