Last winter, teams of researchers in three U.S. cities donned goggles, gloves, and respirators, tore into bags of other people’s household garbage, and then pawed though the contents. Separating slimy banana peels from clumps of coffee grounds was dirty work, but it had a laudable goal: trying to get a handle on how much food waste could have been consumed or diverted before winding its way into the waste stream with a one-way ticket to the dump.
The problems associated with urban food waste are no mystery. Proof of the problem is everywhere, in overflowing garbage bins and grime-slicked compost caddies. Food scraps contribute to the already sizable piles of refuse that cities must haul to landfills; shuttling edible castoffs to people in need requires labyrinthine routes and mind-boggling logistics; and gases released by decomposing leftovers detract from cities’ work toward reining in emissions. But there’s surprisingly little hard data about who’s wasting what, and where, which makes it harder for cities to address the issue.
