How to decrease food waste and recycle at home – If you reside in a region with a food waste recycling pickup service, you may utilize it to dispose of anything you cannot eat, or you can compost it at home.
- In the kitchen, a food waste caddy may help you sort your food waste for recycling and composting. This may be dumped every few days into your compost bin or the municipal food waste container.
- Your local government may suggest lining your food waste caddy with a liner or newspaper. Use only liners suggested by your municipality, as some may not biodegrade in the composting process.
- Keep your trash cans out of direct sunlight and keep the lids closed.
- Only purchase what you need and consume what you purchase. Visit the Love Food Hate Waste website for ideas, recipes, and easy strategies to help you minimize the amount of food you throw away. You may also attempt composting at home.
How are food scraps recycled?
What happens to food waste that is recycled? – Household food waste collected for recycling in the municipality is sent to Bedfordshire, where it is converted into energy and fertilizer. Food waste is placed in an anaerobic digester, where microorganisms decompose the waste in the absence of oxygen.
- This process generates biogas, a combination of methane and carbon dioxide that may be utilized to generate heat, power, or fuels for transportation.
- The gas itself is a renewable energy source.
- The power produced might be sent to the national grid or consumed locally.
- Additionally, anaerobic digestion generates bio-fertilizer that may be utilized as a natural fertilizer in agriculture.
When food waste is disposed of in landfills, it decomposes similarly, but the methane generated is released directly into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide is 25 times less destructive than methane.
How to Recycle Food Waste at Home
Most individuals are unaware of how much food they throw away daily, including uneaten leftovers, rotten products, and edible portions of fruits and vegetables. A third of all food produced in the United States is wasted. EPA estimates that 81 percent, or 20,3 tons, of food wasted by homes in 2018 ended up in landfills or combustion facilities.1,
- Save money by purchasing only what you need, consuming what you purchase, and eliminating food waste. Each year, the average household of four spends $1,500 on food that goes uneaten.
- Reduce your impact on the environment and climate change.
- Conserve energy and resources. When food is wasted, the land, water, energy, and other resources utilized in its production, processing, transportation, preparation, storage, and disposal are also lost.
- Reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). More than 85 percent of GHG emissions from food waste in landfills are caused by activities prior to food entering a landfill, such as food production, transport, processing, and distribution 2. In addition, as food decomposes in a landfill, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released
- food is the single greatest type of waste deposited in municipal landfills. The third greatest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States is municipal solid waste dumps.
Conserve energy and resources. When food is wasted, the land, water, energy, and other resources utilized in its production, processing, transportation, preparation, storage, and disposal are also lost. Reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). More than 85 percent of GHG emissions from food waste in landfills are caused by activities prior to food entering a landfill, such as food production, transport, processing, and distribution 2.