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Wasting food is a serious problem. Addressing it requires broad systemic changes across the food supply chain, focusing on consumer behavior and institutional practices.

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This essay was composed in November 2024 and uses MLA documentation.

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Introduction: The Problem of Food Waste

Ever since I was a little kid, something bothered me about the issue of food waste. I was a very picky eater and remember my parents forcing me to stay at the table until I had finished my food. I would spend many long nights at that dinner table, staring at my sad and cold mashed potatoes that would’ve been fine if I had eaten them 30 minutes ago. Every night, except for a few, I would sluggishly chew through the sad mess that became whatever my mom worked hard to cook for me. Though initially, it was a behavior formed because of my parents’ coercion (at least, what I perceived as coercion), it became a habit over time. I almost always finished my meals, and on the rare occasion I was too full, I would stick it in the fridge and save it for later.

Throwing away food always bothered me, even though I knew very little about its consequences. My concern has only grown since starting college. I work in catering with Dining Services at Utah State University, so I see firsthand how much food we throw away at the end of every night. While little data is available on how much food waste USU produces, on average, college campuses across the nation produce as much as 22 million pounds of edible waste each year (Nayak). In the United States, about 40% of all food produced goes uneaten each month, which amounts to about 20 pounds per person (Ellison et al.). About 60% of this food is still edible when thrown away, making it categorizable as avoidable food waste (Ofei et al.).

This problem is avertable and increasingly urgent. Food waste goes hand in hand with a slew of other world problems, including climate change, food insecurity, and the waste of natural and human resources. About 19% of all U.S. farmland, an area bigger than the state of New Mexico, is growing wasted produce, which means wasted effort from the farmers working that land (Gunders and Bloom 4). I’ve read many academic papers and articles in magazines and online and have found they sing a similar refrain: the air we breathe, the resources we access and utilize, the money we spend, and the world we live in are affected by wasting food. Learning how to reduce the problems food waste causes will enhance the environment, economy, and, of course, eating experiences. This paper aims to analyze the social, economic, and environmental causes and effects of food waste, then evaluate existing solutions and propose new strategies for reduction.

Causes of Food Waste

To solve the food waste problem, we must first look at what is causing it. It’s a matter of killing the root of the weed to protect the garden. There are many factors at play when it comes to this issue, both on and off campus. We can follow the “life cycle” of food–from its creation in a farm or factory to its distribution to grocery and retail stores to the dining table of a home to the landfills it rots in–through a system called the Food Supply Chain (FSC).

This system is incredibly complex, containing many subsystems for each “phase.” At each subsystem, there are various factors to consider, including the safety and quality of the food and the efficiency of the process used at points in the chain. This process is explained in a study of the chain by Christine Göbel and other research fellows at the Institute of Sustainable Nutrition and Food Production in Germany. According to their research, food is wasted or lost at each step in the FSC, with different food groups wasting more at different steps for different reasons. Overall, the common causes of waste along the FSC include the following:

• Food safety and quality standards
• Retail conventions, including foods that are thrown out for aesthetic reasons–even if they are still safe for human consumption
• Human error
• Technical problems, such as defects in machinery
• Miscommunications across markets
• Cultural influence or food deemed unworthy of being eaten by societal conventions (Göbel et al.)

Identifying the causes of waste in this chain will help us understand where we need to focus our efforts to optimize the different processes in the chain.

The stages of the FSC are interdependent, affecting everyone from producer to consumer; when one part of the process falters, the tremors surge throughout (Bourlakis et al. v, 2). For instance, a drought can limit a farmer’s crop harvest, thus restricting the amount of food distributed to retail. A storm can cause delays in exports, such as produce. These delays damage the value of shelf-unstable products through an increased waiting period, resulting in a lower amount of product available, raising the price of said goods because the demand is higher than the supply. This increased price will be put on lower quality food (extremely ripe bananas, for example) because of the increased waiting period. This food will be thrown out sooner and purchased by fewer customers for the combined reasons of price and appearance. A retailer may gear their selection towards shelf-stable items that are less healthy, affecting what you can buy when you go shopping to feed yourself or your loved ones. These are just a few of the many things that can go wrong along the FSC, affecting our behavior towards consumption.

Universities and students contribute to this chain as well. On college campuses, students’ decisions are largely to blame for the waste generated (including food workers at the university). The “out of sight, out of mind” mentality makes throwing away food without thinking about the consequences very easy. According to the Journal of Resources, Conservation & Recycling, this problem is exacerbated by the all-you-care-to-eat style of campus dining halls. Students often take too large portions when serving themselves as there’s practically no incentive to save money, and in non-self-serve environments, students are often given larger portions than they can handle (Ellison et al.). Poor-tasting food and a lack of variety in dining hall menus have also been named one of the leading causes of food waste on campus (Fatemi et al.). I’ve seen this in my own experience and the experiences of friends and strangers on campus; as a student, I can confirm that these are true.

The causes of waste on campus are also explored in ‘What influences students’ food waste behavior in campus canteens?,’ a study published in the British Food Journal in 2022. They identify and confirm the causes already discussed while explaining that young adults are more wasteful than any other age group, especially those from more developed countries and higher class backgrounds. Clearly, ignorance and apathy are pervasive in campus dining halls. Students simply do not think before they eat, and not being intentional is a big problem. However, these causes are very easy to change on an individual level, and increasing awareness of food waste can decrease students’ wasteful decisions by making them more mindful of what happens when edible food is thrown away.

The Impacts of Food Waste

In The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 22, Homer Simpson’s laziness and refusal to take out the trash results in a tussle with Springfield’s Sanitation Department. He decides to run against the current, competent Sanitation Commissioner Ray Patterson (played by Steve Martin) and wins, but very quickly drains the department’s budget. To raise money, he pays other cities to dump their trash in Springfield’s abandoned mine, which overflows and causes trash all over the town to spill out from underground. The episode ends with the townspeople moving their town five miles down the road, leaving the rotting trash heap formerly known as Springfield in the dust.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Unfortunately, trash doesn’t disappear when we throw it away. 97% of wasted food ends up in landfills (Levis et al.), where it loses its energy content and slowly decomposes; this produces methane and carbon dioxide (CO2), two highly potent greenhouse gasses. These and other greenhouse gasses trap heat in our atmosphere, reflecting it back onto the earth (warming it in the same way a greenhouse keeps plants warm). Unchecked human activity has exacerbated this otherwise natural process to threatening levels, and wasting food is a significant contributor to this. According to a study by S.F. Fatemi and others, “Food waste is the third‐largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.” They explain that a relatively small amount of wasted food from farm to table (1,990 foodstuffs) produces a significant amount of CO2 (1534 tons, as much as 279 cars CO2 output in a year). These statistics demonstrate the enormous scope of the problem. It’s contributing much more majorly to the degradation of our ecosystems than most people think. Without systemic change, we will wind up much sadder people.

By throwing away food, we are squandering valuable natural resources. When we throw food out, we’re wasting the land used to grow the food and the fertilizers used on it, the water that food took to grow, and the money that farmers and workers are earning. As the Natural Resources Defense Council puts it, “Food and agriculture consume up to 16 percent of U.S. energy, almost half of all U.S. land and account for 67 percent of the nation’s freshwater use. Those resources are used in vain if the food is never eaten, wasting up to about one-fifth of U.S. cropland, fertilizers, and agricultural water” (5). This wastage is dreadful, especially considering the seemingly perpetual shortage of these resources. According to the Science of the Total Environment journal, “…approximately 35% of the global population is living under high water stress or shortage…” (Kummu et al.). We should not have to restrict our water usage because of these avoidable losses. We should not have to concern ourselves about dust storms and food shortages because we are taking what we have available for granted.

Along with exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions and loss of natural resources, food waste worsens the problem of food security. Because 40% of food produced in the United States is wasted, 1 in 7 Americans are food insecure (Ellison et. al). According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, someone who can be called ‘food insecure’ has consistently limited or unsure access to food, and ‘hunger’ is a consequence of this prolonged state. We are producing enough food to meet the needs of a growing population, yet 14% of that population’s needs are not being met. This problem is ironically high among college students, with many unable to afford consistent access to nutritious food (Nayak). Moreover, it’s even worse in a global context, “…with the estimated number of chronically malnourished people hovering around one billion.” (Naylor). No one should worry about what and when they will eat next. Every person deserves access to wholesome meals, but when we throw so much away, we take that basic human right away from them.

Possible Solutions to Mitigate Food Waste

Fortunately, there are solutions to each of the problems I have outlined that can help mitigate food waste’s effects on the world. We can clear the fog of ignorance lingering in college students and everyday people’s eyes. Most of the world, like global warming, considers food waste a problem. However, if they give it any thought, most people think of it more as a shapeless challenge for which a solution exists but feel there’s nothing they can do about it. Haley Hutchinson, a writer for the Stone Pier Press, put it best when she wrote, “Detached from thinking about the complete journey of our food, we naturally keep the disposal of our organic waste out of sight, out of mind.” This mindset can change by creating an authentic culture of sustainability on campus, especially within restaurants and dining halls. We can do this by launching educational campaigns or increasing students’ awareness of the scope of the problem with posters or ads in dining halls. Studies like Toward Food Waste Reduction at universities have shown that raising student awareness, showing them that food waste is a serious problem, and teaching about sustainability has been shown to change student attitudes towards waste, which leads to an increased desire to throw away less food. This change happened to me as I delved into researching this topic; as I became more deeply aware of the many problems food waste creates, I became more intentional about completely finishing my plate and every meal.

In addition, raising student staff awareness can help reduce food waste inside the kitchen. Dining services should implement a sustainability training course for all employees to increase internal awareness and promote solutions to optimize the processes utilized around campus. Furthermore, dining staff should conduct internal waste assessments and evaluations more frequently. In 2008, Utah State University administered one such audit and, from those results, found an effective way to reduce waste by implementing trayless dining (Brooks and Moore). Taking away those large trays reduces portion size, increasing the likelihood that students will only take what they’ll eat, saving water and energy (less dishwashing), reducing plastic manufacturing, and saving money (no longer need to spend to replace trays).

What practical solutions could we implement today if dining services re-analyzed its kitchen practices? Despite having progressed within those 16 years, dining has room to improve. It has the resources to reduce waste if we have a good idea of where to direct our efforts.

Other colleges and institutions across the country have implemented solutions to reducing food waste that can be reproduced here. For example, students at the University of California, Irvine, have developed a Zot Bites notification system that lets participating students know when there’s leftover food after a catered event and allows them to stock up free of charge. Similar initiatives exist at UCLA and the University of Colorado (Nayak). These actions lower food waste and food insecurity among students, providing workers with extra hours and helping them earn more to cover the hefty cost of college. Instead of throwing away biodegradable food (e.g., apple cores, orange peels, potatoes, coffee grounds, etc.), toss them in a compost bin where they decompose naturally and can be used in a new way (as a soil conditioner), according to the EPA (“Composting at Home”). There are many compost bins in kitchens and buildings around campus, as well as service organizations that donate unused food to be composted.

Extra effort must also be made to improve food quality. Many other students and I, cognizant of the problem of food waste, try very hard to finish every plate of every meal. Still, sometimes, the dining hall’s offerings are so noxious that it’s nearly impossible to finish them. Universities can work with local farms to provide fresher ingredients, and seeking student feedback on food options is a good way to fix this problem (Fatemi et al.).

Another solution that can be implemented in the kitchen is pre-portioning, deciding how much students will take for them by limiting how much food is put out at dining halls per portion. Because everyone eats a different amount of food with each meal, including a variety of portion sizes with the option for refills is the best way to ensure customer satisfaction while reducing the amount of food thrown away. Campus food pantries, such as the Student Nutrition Access Center (SNAC) here at USU, are also a popular and innovative solution. These pantries let students take surplus food (edible food not sold or consumed) donated from university kitchens for free, an excellent food source for those who want to save money (a.k.a: everyone). On-campus service organizations, such as the Christensen Office of Social Action and Sustainability (COSAS), donate unused produce from local farms to these pantries (USU Harvest Rescue).

Off-campus, academics, farmers, governments, and ordinary citizens alike need to turn their attention to the food supply chain and learn how to make the whole process more efficient and circular. Since waste occurs at each step in the chain, we must systematically foster sustainability at each level. For instance, many farm-level food recovery initiatives exist, using the historic practice of gleaning to recover leftover produce after a harvest (Gunders and Bloom 15). Reevaluating commercial grading standards on fruit and vegetable waste will help cap the waste of aesthetically imperfect food that is still safe to eat (Jia et al.). Many charities and NGOs, such as the Open Table based in Australia, have begun giving back to disadvantaged communities by recycling surplus food previously thought to have been wasted and preparing it for those who cannot afford it (Edwards). These are just a few of the many ideas being encouraged by scientists, activists, and policymakers. Following the journey of our food, we find where it is unnecessarily lost, and by categorically assessing each step of the journey, we can reduce waste overall. These ideas can be reproduced at universities, transforming our linear model of eating into a circular economy. To connect the supply chain’s end links, we have to be more thoughtful about food storage and prioritize making sure the food we don’t use has somewhere sustainable to go.

While these solutions are promising in theory, they’re challenging to implement. Food safety practices make it very difficult to reuse leftovers, as demonstrated in an interview with anonymous Danish food service workers: “[Nursing home worker] It is a bit problematic in relation to food hygiene regulation and things like that. This is because it limits what you can do with the leftovers and has many restrictions. [Hospital kitchen worker] If the food has not been eaten and is untouched … you still have to throw it out, because it is not safe to reserve the same food twice” (Ofei et. al). Recalling the text chain idea, longer shifts for employees to oversee students taking leftover food will strain dining services budgets, and the catering staff might not be happy campers after an exhausting shift. It will take much extra effort and likely a lot of money to rethink food storage, but it is a worthy quest for a problem as impactful to the university and the world as this.

The food supply chain is incredibly complex (recall the many systems and subsystems discussed earlier), and even identifying the steps in the chain is a convoluted and muddling process. The different steps of the chain depend on each other – to have a sustainable end stage of the FSC, we need a sustainable beginning stage (Göbel et al.). Take pre-portioning, for example. Everything needs to be portioned smaller. Dining halls need to serve smaller food portions so they aren’t throwing as much out. However, distributors need to put less food in each package for that to happen. However, for that to happen, producers need to produce less. However, we don’t want that to happen because a growing population needs a lot of food. We can’t majorly cut back on production, but we can ensure that the food produced is used by creating a sustainable supply chain.

While educational campaigns are useful, their impact on reducing wasted food on campus has been modest. Although raising students’ awareness has been shown to alter beliefs and attitudes toward food waste on an individual scale, the overall impact education had on students was insignificant on a large scale (Busse) (Ellison et al.). Reducing personal food waste is all about tiny changes, tweaks in habits, and intentional eating. However, this doesn’t work on a large scale unless everyone does it. This calls for widespread sustainability initiatives and implementation of those solutions discussed earlier, which can happen with effort and communication. Universities need to make the issue more personal to students. Through informal discussions with other students, I’ve found that they can do this by reminding students of the economic costs of wasting food. Creating an atmosphere of conservation in dining halls by putting up posters, for example, would help promote this (Ellison et al.). If dining halls didn’t serve buffet-style food, students would be charged much more for the same amount of food. Maintaining and promoting this perspective will help change student behavior towards food waste, mobilizing campuses to make a change.

Conclusion

Wasting food is a serious problem. Addressing it requires broad systemic changes across the food supply chain, focusing on consumer behavior and institutional practices. Looking at this issue through college campuses is like looking at the larger world through a magnifying glass, providing insight into societal trends. This microcosm makes them the perfect place to demonstrate practical solutions like raising awareness, encouraging food recovery programs, and recycling food work. While personal responsibility is a key part of this fight, lasting change depends on the collective effort of students and staff to create a culture of sustainability. By reevaluating current practices and promoting education and efficiency, we can reduce food waste and mitigate its impacts on humanity and the planet.

While not all solutions are practical, many ready-to-implement ideas are out there. Don’t be afraid to speak up, to get involved – volunteer at your local food pantry (for USU students, that’s Cache Community Food Pantry) or NGO (Utah State has a chapter of the Food Recovery Network, as well as COSAS, mentioned earlier. If your school doesn’t have anything like this, start one!). This is a dizzying problem, but we have the power to change that. It’s up to us to make it known that we care about food waste. As my coworker Izzy once said while throwing away an untouched plate of chicken mushroom stew, “People are disgustingly wasteful.” But we don’t have to be.

Works Cited

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