Save Energy: Cut Down on Food Waste
 A resident adds kitchen food scraps to yard debris in a roll cart as part of the community's source separated organics collection program. Photo: City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability |
There are plenty of steps for 肠辞苍蝉耻尘辫迟颈辞苍鈥攊苍蝉迟补濒濒 instead of incandescent bulbs, purchase electronics, use smart power strips. But a new study reveals that a huge source of wasted energy is one most of us probably overlook: Food waste.
Americans chuck a whopping 27% of edible food in the trash. Those unused comestibles represent about 2030 trillion BTU鈥攐r the equivalent of approximately 350 million barrels of oil. That鈥檚 about 2% of annual energy consumption in the U.S., Amanda Cu茅llar and Michael Webber report in . (Food-related energy use鈥攅verything from production and packaging to preparation and disposal鈥攁ccounts for of our total energy budget.)
Credit: Cu茅llar and Webber, ES&T.
Cu茅llar and Webber write:
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The energy discarded in wasted food is more than the energy available from many popular efficiency and energy procurement strategies, such as the annual production of ethanol from grains and annual petroleum available from drilling in the outer continental shelf. Consequently, the energy embedded in wasted food represents a substantial target for decreasing energy consumption in the U.S. A decrease in food waste must be accompanied with a retooling of the food supply chain to ensure that the energy consumed during food production does in fact decrease with a decrease in food waste.
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The finding is likely an underestimate because the data they used were out of date, the authors note.
All of this makes me cringe when I think of the rotted veggies and moldy leftovers I sometimes find in my fridge. But I have found a few ways to cut down on food waste at home. Before heading to the grocery store, come up with a week鈥檚 worth of meals and make a list of ingredients. And leftovers don鈥檛 have to be boring. Food journalist and cookbook author Mark Bittman, for instance, suggests turning that extra cooked spaghetti into a scrumptious . There鈥檚 the extra perk of cutting down the grocery bill, too.
Some food waste is inevitable, of course. For info on composting programs in your area,
Any other suggestions?