Reducing food waste footprint in a university setting
Authors: Jared Foote, Amanda McKinney
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2018)

Even excluding land use-based emissions, food waste is the third top emitter of global greenhouse gases after the total national emissions of the USA and China (appendix), and food waste has large blue water and land-use emissions footprints.1Food wastage footprint: impacts on natural resources. Summary report.http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdfDate accessed: December 23, 2017Google Scholar More than 10 million kilos of uneaten food is thrown away on US university campuses each year.2How to reduce campus food waste.https://www.universitybusiness.com/article/how-reduce-campus-food-wasteDate accessed: December 23, 2017Google Scholar When sent to landfills, food waste emits methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide gases each year equalling a 10 million kg CO2 equivalent or 1·7 million days of electricity consumption for one household.3Food Waste Greenhouse Gas Calculator.https://watchmywaste.com.au/food-waste-greenhouse-gas-calculator/Date accessed: December 23, 2017Google Scholar Worldwide, nearly 3 billion people still use solid fuel to cook and heat their homes. Indoor air pollution from open wood fires used for cooking is the fifth leading cause of death in developing countries. Non-communicable diseases, including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer are attributed to exposure to household air pollution.4Household air pollution and health.http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/Date accessed: December 23, 2017Google Scholar Doane University students have begun a food waste campaign. A preliminary audit showed that the university's cafeteria was throwing away 420 kg of food per week, with a potential energy equivalent of 71·25 days of electricity for one household. To mitigate landfill global greenhouse gas emissions, the food waste will be placed in a biodigester. As it composts, the gases can be collected and used on campus and the compost from the biodigester will be used as fertilizer in campus gardens. One kilo of food waste can produce an average of about 0·2 m3 of gas, which can fuel an hour's worth of cooking over a high flame. Thus, Doane University could produce 4368 m3 of gas annually,5Home-sized biogas unit turns organic waste into cooking fuel and fertilizer, for under $900.https://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/home-sized-biogas-unit-turns-organic-waste-cooking-fuel-and-fertilizer-under-900.htmlDate accessed: December 23, 2017Google Scholar displacing a small but substantial portion of its fossil fuel use each year. Use of a biodigester is a cradle-to-cradle planetary health solution that addresses the food waste problem, reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and displacing fossil fuel use. This solution, if expanded, offers great opportunity to help mitigate climate change as well as create fertilizer for production of healthy food. This model also presents the opportunity for production of small-scale and community-scale biodigesters that can create a clean source of fuel for cooking, thus reducing poor air quality-related health problems for the 3 billion people who still use solid fuel for cooking. Funding Institute for Human and Planetary Health Contributors JF and AM designed the project, JF implemented the project, and AM wrote the report. Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests. Download .pdf (.36 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix