01 / THE BIG PICTURE
Good food.
Bad ending.
Food is too valuable to become trash. The numbers make a case for preventing waste before it starts.
A U.S. snapshot using EPA’s 2018 estimates.
02 / THE SCALE
A big slice
of the waste.
In 2018, food accounted for 21.6% of U.S. municipal solid waste generated.
That is 63.1 million U.S. tons from commercial, institutional and residential sources. Industrial food waste is outside this figure.
03 / THE DESTINATION
Most of it
gets buried.
More than half of that food waste went to landfill.
Disposal dominates the picture. Changing what happens before food becomes waste deserves attention.
04 / THE RESPONSE
First, keep
food as food.
Preventing waste comes before managing waste.
EPA’s Wasted Food Scale places prevention among the most environmentally preferred pathways. Here is a practical way to apply that idea.
Source: EPA · Wasted Food Scale ↗
05 / THE TAKEAWAY
Waste less.
Start small.
Track one week. Change one habit. Measure again.
Weigh discarded food for seven days, record why it was discarded, then repeat after changing a habit. Compare the totals to see what worked.
Illustrative target, not a measured outcome or a prediction. Use the same weighing method both weeks.
20% less(5 − 4) ÷ 5 × 100 = 20%