Goal 5 – Efficiency
Reducing and Diverting Waste in Our Food System
In a region defined by high production, the management of surplus food and organic waste represents a critical intersection of environmental stewardship, resource management, and social responsibility. By redirecting high-quality food away from landfills and back to the community or the land, Dane County has the opportunity to transform an environmental burden into efficient resources for energy, nutrition, and health.
Unfortunately, the sheer volume of waste continues to outpace the current capacity of recovery and compost networks, which have the difficult job of managing food waste, ensuring safe food handling protocols for recovered food, and avoiding contamination of inorganic or non-compostible products in diversion programs. Stronger policy interventions and a stabilized gleaning network will reduce the environmental impact on our landfills and ensure that our community is strategic about reducing waste.
Strategies
1. Support Individuals and Organizations to Reduce Food Waste
Community engagement input identified significant interest in reducing food waste from both businesses and individuals. For both groups, wasted food represents wasted money. Efforts to increase efficient food resource management therefore increase financial stability.
Actions
- Share educational materials about the scope of community food waste in home and public settings.
- Provide materials to business operators to understand the financial and environmental benefits of reducing waste and donating food.
- Bolster training, education, and resources to address food waste in school cafeterias and youth organizations.
- Raise awareness of public resources and training on food preservation skills.
2. Increase Capacity for Food Recovery Efforts
While edible food that is discarded represents inefficiency in the food system, it also represents a significant source of potential donated food for the emergency food system. Providers can often accept fresh produce and other unadulterated foods, depending on condition and expiration. Prepared food can also be salvaged in some occasions through programs that are able to safely transport and repackage items. Gleaning in another form of food recovery where excess food and leftover or imperfect crops can be recovered from farms or businesses when it can no longer be sold. These strategies are critical for directing food that would be wasted to people who can benefit from it.
Actions
- Update local materials that outline the legal, safety, and other considerations for donating food.
- Invest in the coordination of community-wide gleaning efforts with organizations such as Healthy Food For All, Second Harvest, and Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens.
- Support connections with producers and organizations looking into storage and processing capacity, like the FoodShed Partnership.
- Strengthen the coordination of the existing gleaning networks to improve logistics and more efficiently capture more food.
3. Invest in Tools to Reduce Commercial Food Waste
One reason restaurants and grocers may choose to put food in the dumpster is that they don’t have clear alternatives to get rid of it and they have continuous new stock coming in that requires limited shelf space. Developing new ways to help businesses connect with each other and with places that can glean or pick up their excess food can help offset commercial waste.
Actions
- Develop tools for business-to-business inventory management to limit waste before food expires.
- Implement community-wide investments in volunteer recruitment for gleaning and processing of food that can be recovered for emergency food providers.
- Develop processes to repurpose bulk food that is close to expiration for use as livestock or animal feed.
4. Divert Organic Material From the Landfill
Food is often thrown away when other options are not possible or the products are too close to expiration to be donated. This material ends up in the Dane County landfill where it can contribute to the creation of emissions like methane. Many strategies for diversion of organic waste from landfills are emerging in our community, including biodigesters, home compost, and public food scrap recovery stations. In many cases, this organic material can be collected and used for compost that can strengthen the soil for gardens and farms.
Actions
- Expand promotion of existing food scrap drop-off locations.
- Develop programs to offset some of the costs for home composting operations.
- Work with homeowners and landlords to increase home composting opportunities, especially for renters.