Food waste is one of the biggest problems of our time, yet the fight against it has only just begun.

Not all countries treat food waste sustainably or even measure it. But the first step towards change is spreading awareness — something we can all do.

Read on to discover how food waste can be treated, how it’s currently being handled, and how you can reduce food waste.

Why recycling food waste is important

Globally, over 931 million tonnes of food is wasted annually, costing the global economy close to €900 billion. When we waste food, we also waste the resources that go into producing it.

Wasting food’s also morally wrong since the amount currently wasted is enough to feed the world’s undernourished people twice over.

Up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are also associated with food waste. It may not seem like much, but as the UN put it, if food loss and waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter after the US and China.

About 14% is wasted between harvest and the retail market, and 17% is at the retail and consumer level.

Simply put, one-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted.

You may think food waste doesn’t concern you as an individual and that supermarkets and restaurants are to blame. But 61% of food waste comes from households.

There’s no need to point fingers, though. Instead, let’s spread awareness so that everyone — from farmers to consumers and governments — can help fight food loss and waste.

How can food waste be treated?

Once you throw food in the bin, it becomes mixed municipal waste. Mixed municipal waste includes the everyday rubbish that people, households, institutions (schools, hospitals), and businesses (supermarkets, restaurants) throw away.

Depending on the country, food waste is the biggest or the second biggest contributor to mixed municipal waste. Others are paper, food, garden clippings, plastics, and metal.

There are four main ways to treat mixed municipal waste: landfill disposal, incineration, recycling, and composting.

Landfill

Dumping waste in landfill is the lowest level of waste management. But as imperfect as it might be, landfill is still environmentally safer than illegal open dumps.

One of the main problems with landfills is that food waste has trouble breaking down. In doing so, it creates methane — a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2. And though modern landfills are environmentally safer than their older counterparts, only 8% of municipal waste is disposed of in sanitary landfills with gas collection systems.

Despite the environmental impact, landfill use is still widespread because of its affordability and convenience — especially for low-income countries or those with lots of space.

Incineration

Waste-to-energy plants take up less space than landfill sites and can reduce the volume of food waste by up to 90%. But the remaining ash still needs to be disposed of in landfill.

Since food waste is about 70% water, it requires lots of energy to burn. And it’s one of the reasons why incineration is one of the most expensive and least efficient ways to generate power.

On the plus side, incineration facilities don’t normally produce CH4 and may generally be environmentally safer than landfill. Unfortunately, though, they emit more CO2 and toxins.

Recycling

Recycling helps prevent the harmful side effects of landfill and incineration and saves energy and other resources by reducing the need to make products from scratch.

The EPA estimates that about 75% of waste could be recycled, yet only a fraction is.

There are many ways to recycle food waste, from using it as animal feed to vermicomposting – making compost using worms. But one of the primary methods is turning food waste into fertiliser or biogas (e.g. via anaerobic digestion).

Anaerobic digestion

As in landfill, in this process, microorganisms break down food waste and produce methane. But in biogas plants, the process is highly effective, and the methane is collected.

The gas is then converted into carbon-neutral biogas to generate electricity, power, or heat. And the nutrient-rich digestate that remains can be used as a natural fertiliser.

Roughly 20,000 biogas plants were operating in the EU in 2020. But most countries have some catching up to do since almost half of them (9000) were located in Germany.

Composting

Given that roughly 50% of waste is organic, we could divert a significant amount of municipal waste from landfills by composting.

Industrial composting sites treat food waste on a large scale and can compost waste twice as fast as in your back garden. High volumes of food waste are broken down in long rows (usually 120-240 cm tall and 4-5 m wide), in vessels with highly controlled conditions, or in aerated piles layered with bulking agents.

The controlled conditions at industrial composting facilities help decompose bioplastics and even the toughest food waste, like meat and bones. The result is a fine compost powder known as a soil conditioner used by farms and individuals.

What happens to food waste?

Not all countries have separate data on food waste, but we know the world generates over two billion tonnes of mixed municipal waste annually.

What happens to food waste globally?

The latest comprehensive study published by the World Bank in 2018 saw mixed municipal waste (including food waste) treated as follows:

33% discarded in open dumps;
~37% dumped into landfill;
11.1% incinerated;
13.5% recycled;
5.5% composted.

High-income countries accounted for 16% of the world’s population but generated about 34% of the world’s waste. And 93% of open dumping occurred in low-income countries.

What happens to food waste in the EU?

From 1995 to 2020, municipal waste management in the EU has made significant progress.

Landfilling has more than halved, incineration has doubled, and recycling and composting have nearly tripled.

This is where mixed municipal waste ended up in the EU in 2020:

~23% landfilled;
27% incinerated;
30% recycled;
18% composted.

What happens to food waste in the US?

The US has separate data on food waste, but it’s not so encouraging.

Only in 2020 did the United States Environmental Protection Agency renew its methodology to reflect additional food waste treatments like recycling by anaerobic digestion.

The EPA estimated that in 2018, food waste in the US ended up as follows:

55.9% in landfill;
12% incinerated;
8.3% used to make biogas;
4.1% composted.

Landfills are more prevalent in the US due to a lack of regulations (as seen in the EU), their low cost, and the country’s abundant space.

What happens to food waste in Africa?

Africa generally produces smaller amounts of municipal waste than other continents, but a very low amount is handled responsibly.

How municipal mixed waste is handled in Africa:

90%+ disposed at landfills and dumpsites;
4% recycled;
~6% incinerated and composted.

Most of the food in Africa’s developing countries is not wasted on the consumer level but lost during the production, post-harvesting, and processing stages for reasons like inadequate storage methods.

What happens to food waste in Asia?

According to the data available, municipal waste in Eastern, South-Eastern and South-Central Asian countries is treated as follows:

~63% disposed in landfills;
~12% incinerated;
~4% composted;
~22% other treatment (incl. recycling).

What can we do to reduce food waste?

As you can see, food waste management could and should improve tremendously.

To reduce the need for landfills and incineration plants, we need to minimise food waste in general waste. And you can help by sorting your waste at home.

Read our blog post on how to choose and use a food waste caddy. You’ll learn what you can throw into a food waste bin and how to make sorting food waste easier.

But the best way to reduce food waste is to prevent it. Check out the five steps you can take to reduce food waste for a more sustainable future.

What happens to food waste, and why’s recycling important?

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