ASU Study Shows Promise For Stemming Tide Of Food Waste

By Nicholas Gerbis
Published: Monday, October 5, 2020 - 5:51am
Updated: Monday, October 5, 2020 - 8:09am
Audio icon Download mp3 (1.14 MB)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates America wastes around 20-30% of its available food supply each year. That adds up to more than $800 annually for families with children.

A new Arizona State University study in the journal Resources, Conservation & Recycling seeks to change that.

Food waste drains bank accounts, floods landfills and pumps methane into the atmosphere.

But it's an easy problem to overlook, complicated further by factors like misunderstood expiration dates.

"When we throw food out — a scrap of bread here, a little bit of milk there – we don't think about it in the aggregate, what it means across all these different areas of our life," said lead author Christopher Wharton, assistant dean in the College of Health Solutions at ASU.

When Wharton and colleagues offered web-based learning tools to 53 Phoenix households over five weeks, they found food waste shrank by more than 27%.

Participants also received clear plastic bins and food-grade scales with which to track their waste.

In some cases, the changes stuck for nine months or more.

"It suggests that not only were we able to effectively reduce food waste within the intervention, but that they'd keep it up," said Wharton.

The online materials lay out the causes and impacts of food waste and tie them to key values.

"About a third people of people cared most about health, about a third cared most about finances and about a third cared most about environmental concerns," said Wharton.

He says his lab focuses on getting people to care about the full value food represents.

"It took real energy. It took real natural resources. And wasting that stuff is meaningful."

Business Education Science Sustainability