Category Archives: Stats

On Terminology and Terminals

I’ve been excited to see the press that Kevin Hall et al’s study has received. You know, the one that found that America wastes 40 percent of its food. It was featured in The Economist and then The New York Times “Idea of the Day” blog repeated the findings with a quote from the former. […]

December 4, 2009 | Also posted in Household, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

A new study by a team of National Institute of Health researchers has some fascinating findings. After analyzing USDA and FAO data, the team of researchers found that US per capita food waste has increased by 50 percent since 1974. More interesting, they found that we now waste 40 percent of our available food supply. […]

November 27, 2009 | Also posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, Household, International | Comments closed

A Video to be Thankful for

If I was going to make a short video summing up the problem of wasted food, it’d look something like this. Good did a great job of illuminating the problem and then suggesting ideas on how to take action. — Speaking of taking action, with Thanksgiving upon us, I just wanted to add a few […]

November 25, 2009 | Also posted in History and Culture, Household | Comments closed

Delving Deeper into UK Waste

Not content with their excellent 2008 study on waste throughout the food chain in Britain, the semi-governmental group WRAP just released a more detailed study on household food waste. This is a pretty big deal in these parts, and I’ll be making my way through the study in the coming days. In the meantime, here […]

November 11, 2009 | Also posted in General, International | Comments closed

Waste Revolution (coming soon)

Bold stuff coming from the UK. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for the Environment Hilary Benn announced plans to turn Britain into a zero waste nation. Eventually. Benn pointed to a goal of diverting 75 percent of household waste from landfill by 2019. In addressing food waste, Benn alluded to the fast-progressing (in the UK) anaerobic […]

October 14, 2009 | Also posted in Energy, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Taking Inventory: Supermarket Waste

After years of silence on the topic of food waste, our federal government has released a study on the topic. The Economic Research Service (ERS), the research wing of the Deptartment of Agriculture, has kicked in with a study on supermarket food loss (view the full report here). The long-anticipated (at least in these quarters) […]

March 26, 2009 | Also posted in Supermarket | Comments closed

Three Things Twitter Can Tell Us About Food Waste

As loyal WastedFood.com readers are no doubt aware, Jonathan is taking a brief hiatus from blogging as he and his wife have welcomed a baby boy into their previously waste-free lives. I told Jonathan that the least a new uncle could do was throw up a guest post or two. Here goes: Let’s begin by […]

February 13, 2009 | Also posted in General, Guest Posts | Comments closed

Quantifying Food Recovery’s Eco Impact

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could figure out the environmental benefits of diverting food from landfills? Good news, as Australia’s FareShare has done just that. The Victoria food recovery organization recently estimated that their 2008-2009 efforts will avoid 620 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. What does that really mean? Well, FareShare […]

December 2, 2008 | Also posted in Food Recovery, International | Comments closed

Numbers

Our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just published their October 2008 data and it’s mixed news. Overall, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was down 1 percent from September. Good for pocketbooks, but bad for the economy. One D word–‘deflation’–has economists fretting about another–‘depression.’ OK, OK, what about food? Looking at the specifics, […]

November 20, 2008 | Also posted in Household | Comments closed

Water, Food Wasted

Thursday I wrote about colleges cutting the use of trays. In addition to limiting food waste, it curtails water usage, as there are no trays to wash. Another way to save water is to not waste food in general. Saving Water: From Field to Fork, a new report by the Stockholm Water Management Institute (SIWI), […]

August 25, 2008 | Also posted in General | Comments closed