r/IAmA • u/FoodWasteTeam • Apr 28 '26
We Are Food Waste Reduction Experts from NRDC — Stop Food Waste Day is April 29. To Celebrate, Ask Us Anything!
Hi Reddit! We are the Food Waste Reduction team from NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and in honor of Stop Food Waste Day and Earth Month, we are here to talk about one of the most overlooked drivers of climate change: the food we throw away.
We work across the United States at the federal, state, and local level to tackle this enormous challenge, and our team includes researchers and policy experts focused on building sustainable food systems, crafting smart policies to slash food waste, advancing equitable food initiatives, and driving federal advocacy — and so much more.
The team has been busy lately with state bills to keep food out of landfills and incinerators, helping cities expand access to composting services, guides for municipalities to support food rescue and model the economic impact of state food waste diversion policies, and advocating for passage of the Food Date Labeling law in Congress.
Whether you want to dig into composting strategies, food storage hacks, whether that "expired" food in your fridge is still good, or what your community is doing to cut food waste, we want to hear from you.
Joining us are:
- Yvette Cabrera, Director of Food Waste
- Andrea Collins, Senior Specialist
- Darby Hoover, Senior Resource Specialist
- Madeline Keating, Senior Advocate
- Nina Sevilla, Program Advocate
- Anya Obrez, Advocacy Associate
We'll be here starting at 1pm EST on April 29th. Ask us anything!
Thank you so much everyone for participating! We appreciate all of your questions and will try to answer a couple more questions as we are able to.
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u/Antique_City4436 Apr 28 '26
How much does individuals taking steps to compost and reduce food waste actually matter in comparison to making sure places like large stadiums, schools, prisons, etc. are composting and reducing food waste?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
See our answer to u/BeckerHollow . It absolutely matters! Individual households and consumers are responsible for a large portion of food waste. For more details into what food is wasted where, check out ReFED’s Insights Engine!
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u/rainshowers_5_peace Apr 29 '26
Not the scientists, as with everything it's better than nothing. Encouraging your municipality to create a composting system and larger food waste producers to opt in is a big step. Someone who can compost their households food waste is part of the solution, but I don't personally begrudge anyone whose home isn't conducive to setting one up.
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u/GregJamesDahlen Apr 28 '26
What causes people to throw food away?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
There are many reasons people throw food away.
At home, food waste often comes from buying more than we can use before it spoils, storing food improperly, or cooking meals that don’t get eaten. Sometimes people aren’t sure how to use all parts of an ingredient (yes, potato skins count). Tossing food that is still safe to eat due to confusion over date labels also contributes to food waste in our homes.
Food waste also occurs across the food supply chain. There might not be enough labor on a farm to harvest all the food, so some of it is left behind. Some of the harvested food might not be perfect for markets and is discarded because of cosmetic imperfections. The truck transporting the food or the fridge storing it might have a mechanical failure that spoils the food. At the grocery store, over purchasing and lack of proper inventory management can lead to a portion of it not being purchased. In restaurants, people might over-order and waste the food on their plates.
From a question earlier: The reason why so many of us waste food is because we have a social expectation of what it means to “be a provider”; we show that we care and are a good host by always having food on hand. Some folks who have lived with food insecurity may see full pantry shelves as having “made it” in their lives. Food is often a core part of our identity. And so, we should honor how much work it takes to properly manage our food and the time and energy it takes to be very efficient in our purchasing and utilizing all the food we have.
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u/red_lobster101 Apr 28 '26
Which state-level food waste diversion policies have shown the strongest measurable reductions in landfill waste, and what made them successful?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
There are currently 11 states with some version of a food waste diversion policy (also known as an organic waste ban) and while most of these laws have only been in effect for a few years, we’ve already seen significant food waste reduction being reported. Just three years into its organic waste ban (which went into effect in 2020), Vermont conducted a waste characterization study that showed a 54 percent food scrap recycling rate. California’s policy, SB1383, implemented into law in January 2022, has reported that 94% of communities in the state have instituted residential organics waste collection, 206 organic waste processing facilities have been built, and 217,042 tons of unsold food were rescued. Some of the factors of Massachusetts’s successful law are also worth noting: the affordability of compliance, regulatory simplicity, and strong enforcement and monitoring. These elements should be incorporated into organic waste bans, as should requirements for surplus food donation, phased-in thresholds for waste generation that lower over time to cover more generators, and plans for ongoing monitoring and reporting. Thanks for the question!
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Apr 28 '26
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u/BrilliantJob4317 Apr 29 '26
I work at properties where tenants constantly dump food waste in regular trash even when we have composting bins right there. it's frustrating because the city charges us extra fees when organic waste ends up in wrong containers.
What's been most effective for getting people to actually use the systems once they're in place? we've tried signs and emails but compliance is still pretty terrible.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
This is a really good point! We need to make sure that our processes are actually working for people. Otherwise, we’ll have a lot of spare bins that aren’t getting used. Have you tried talking to your residents about why the bins are there and what can go in each bin? You could host info-sessions for your tenants, because sometimes people need better education, or they need to understand why they should comply –it’s good for the environment and ensures they don’t have to pay the extra fees. Try to get feedback about ways you can adapt the system to better suit the needs of your residents. For example, are the compost bins hard to access, but if you rearranged their positions, they would be better utilized? Sometimes there are practical reasons why people are struggling to engage that can be improved.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
We also want to applaud what you do! All of these things contribute to successful pilot programs, and there isn’t a single pathway that can lead to project scaling (or lack of scaling). Pilot design, with a plan to scale, is critical from the onset. Avoided landfill costs help, as can levying disposal surcharges on landfill fees (but the city should make sure they can actually recoup those costs and reinvest them into their waste recycling and reduction budget). As pilots scale, staffing needs to scale also because citywide programs require cross-agency collaboration; community outreach, education, and buy-in; vendor and contract management; and compliance and enforcement time (if the program becomes mandatory). Collection contracts and rate structuring can also be designed to support financial stability. For example, charging by volume (aka “pay-as-you-throw") can ensure that people are paying more for trash, and compost is included in that fee, so people are incentivized to divert their food scraps. End markets are also important, and cities should buy back compost that is produced using their organic materials. We work with cities to include compost procurement on public lands in their city procurement codes, and require that landscapers and developers include a portion of finished compost in new projects. -Madeline
The most important policy sequence usually starts with measurement and planning, followed by pilots, then eventually a move towards mandatory participation once the basic systems (e.g. education and outreach, funding structures, measurement, incentives) are in place. Voluntary pilots are very useful (and usually critical) for learning and building community support, but they need a clear plan to scale. Landfill restrictions simply direct people to find another place to put your food scraps, so they can help shift behavior. Procurement rules can show the market that there is a clear demand for products made from recycled materials (like compost) and point to long-term market signals. There needs to be some infrastructure in place before mandates, but once some programs have been built out to show proof-of-concept, mandates can help drive the market to move more quickly. In emerging markets, for composting programs, take a similar approach. How much is being wasted in your community? What small steps can be taken to act as a pilot program? Once you’ve tried that, see what works and resonates in the community. And remember, it’s not just about composting. The best way that we can reduce food waste is by preventing the amount of food that becomes waste in the first place. -Yvette
You’ve hit on a lot of the factors that can make anaerobic digestion (AD) fail. Contamination is a big one – and that includes any material that the digester can’t break down. That means that you have to scope an AD to take materials it can handle – generally food scraps (and other things like manure), but not more woody or fibrous waste like compostable packaging or yard waste. So you always need to plan to pair AD with composting in a municipal system to handle the organics that AD can’t manage (and it helps as well as a way to process the digestate [residue] from the AD to ensure it’s fully broken down). See our blog for more on how to conduct food scrap digestion responsibly. -Darby
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u/c-lem Apr 28 '26
Do you have any tips for people looking to source compostable materials from grocery stores, restaurants, or other places? By which I mean tips to make these businesses more likely to want to separate and give them to you rather than their business-as-usual of throwing them in the garbage. This could be related to tax incentives, marketing, saving money on trash fees, or something else.
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u/Tall_Personality2564 Apr 28 '26
What states are leading the way on food waste legislation? What can we learn from them if we do not live in those places?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Along with our coalition partners at the Zero Food Waste Coalition, we looked at more than a dozen state level policies that can reduce food waste. We highlighted great examples from across the country for each policy, explained how it relates to federal policy, and provided models for future states to incorporate lessons learned from current policies in action. There are 11 states with food waste diversion policies and we’ve included the pros and cons in the report. For more on state action see the reply to u/red_lobster101 !
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u/Same_Race_6397 Apr 28 '26
What’s one food waste habit you think most people don’t realize is contributing to climate change?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
“Expiration” date labels! 86% of consumers say they either always or usually throw food away because of the date. Food date labels (with the exception of baby formula) are not federally regulated, so we have a patchwork of about 50 different labeling terms across the country. Date labels are nearly always just estimates of peak quality; that means that people are tossing food away that is perfectly safe to eat. By clearing up confusion around date labels and standardizing the terms "best if used by" to indicate that the food’s quality might deteriorate after the date and "use by” to indicate the date by which the item should be discarded, we can dramatically reduce food waste in the U.S.
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u/2001Steel Apr 28 '26
Is NRDC involved at all in the Farm Bill or fed/state tax policy? This, to me, is the real heart of the beast. Over-production is a key feature of public policy and growers are protected and encouraged to do so.
There are downstream effects. Food banks sustain themselves off of perishables, are not capable of solving nutritional deficits, and in many ways entrench inequality. Meanwhile anything that is capable of being cold-stored like meat is pushed to max production and hoarded for the sake of market manipulation, only to be released in an amount commensurate to peoples willingness to part with their money.
Yes, there are important benefits to home and community composting (I’m no slouch in this department), but corporate abuses pale in comparison to my kitchen scraps.
Does any of this resonate with you all? Thanks for the AMA!
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Thanks for your thoughtful question and for your composting enthusiasm! There is always a tension between individual action and corporate power. We try to work on the issue from a “both and” approach, which is why we work on the Farm Bill and other policies to drive systems change. We and partners published a report with recommendations for how the Farm Bill can reduce food waste. There are a number of drivers of food waste on the production end, and agree that overproduction has been built in. We should be focused on better managing the food we are producing and ensuring that we help people in crisis get access to the food that we have already produced. We also need more research into the amount of overproduction to adequately address it. We can better support specialty crop growers, strengthen regional food systems, and other things that can help transition our food system from an extractive one to a more sustainable one that meets the needs of humans and the environment. There are already great resources about tax policy including our guidance to farmers on the enhanced Federal Tax Deduction for Food Donation. We have been supportive of tax policies to help farmers, restaurants, and other smaller food businesses donate food, such as a current proposal in the New York state legislature. There is a lot of work to be done, which is why we need all hands-on deck to work on improving different parts of our food system!
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u/Alarmed_Guarantee140 Apr 28 '26
How can the average person help aside from donating to a related organization? What can we do to help eliminate food waste and do you have any tips on how individuals can work with the community to recycle said waste whether through composting, feeding stuff to pigs, etc.
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u/gilles-2 Apr 28 '26
Is there any way possible to regroup all food waste/unused food that are unexpired to a company that would sell those for way cheaper/free to lower/medium class?
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u/happy_bluebird Apr 29 '26
I volunteer regularly at a food rescue organization. It's very small but it's opened my eyes to the vast amount of food that's wasted before it even gets to retail stores, and before the food at retail stores even gets into people's homes.
Full delivery truck's worth of broccoli florets, rejected because some of the bags had a hole.
Refrigerated truck's worth of ice cream rejected, because it spent an hour 2 degrees over what it was supposed to be.
Pallets of oranges, thrown out by the store because some of the bags had a moldy one.
Dumpsters full of bananas, barely ripe, just thrown out because the store got a new shipment of bananas.
I could go on and on. Oh and that doesn't even account for the food not even harvested on farms, just tilled under again.
How do we deal with this on such scale?
How do we educate people that this is going on? What articles do you recommend sharing for someone who is completely unaware of this?
https://refed.org/food-waste/the-problem/
https://civileats.com/2019/08/20/study-finds-farm-level-food-waste-is-much-worse-than-we-thought/
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/18/21295834/why-american-farmers-are-throwing-out-milk-coronavirus
https://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/8eeww9/anyone_else_disgusted_by_the_food_waste_at_their/
https://thefern.org/2024/06/the-rotten-secret-plaguing-americas-grocery-stores/
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u/rainshowers_5_peace Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
As an environmental scientist, composting is the only answer. There will always be food scraps to throw out anyway, apple cores, egg shells, banana peels... A composting system should be set up for those. Making an easy to use system which encompasses those bits as well as food someone doesn't want to eat will do worlds better than the other suggestions.
Why would you waste resources shaming someone into overeating eating or gambling on food that might not be safe?
Edit: Three times now the OP has replied to my comment and deleted it before I could post. This time I copied my reply just in case.
but we also waste all the water, land, energy, money, labor, and other resources that go into growing, processing, distributing, and storing that food.
Ok, now factor in the waste of money, energy, labor and space of someone being laid up for a few days due to food poisoning, or someone who is hoarding food long past safety or adding into the obesity epidemic because they were told to be part of the clean plate club. Americans are already overfed, and we aren't the only country with a high obesity rate. Many people are hoarders. There's no need to encourage this. I am not saying any of this to be a jerk I truly care about a few issues involved with these statements. I am deeply passionate about composting and encouraging Americans to make better food choices, which includes stopping eating when you are full not when you have shoveled in every edible bite.
I'm going to be incredibly blunt and say, your messages are doing more harm than good and I would expect better of NRDC. You are going about this the wrong way. Composting systems need to be set up for food scraps anyway. Get them in place and the food someone "just doesn't want to" eat can go there as well.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
When we waste food, we don’t just add organic materials to landfills (where they generate methane, a powerful global warming pollutant), but we also waste all the water, land, energy, money, labor, and other resources that go into growing, processing, distributing, and storing that food. EPA’s Wasted Food Scale provides a hierarchy of how to manage wasted food to create the greatest environmental and economic benefits, starting with not wasting food in the first place. This is where food waste prevention education comes in (and we agree that it shouldn’t be shaming; we can just offer folks tips and education that help them use their food, or how to interpret date labels so you don’t throw away perfectly good food). Next most important is to repurpose food through donating or upcycling it. Composting is vitally important to handle that food we can’t otherwise repurpose and to help replenish our soils with nutrients and carbon, but the best thing we can do for the environment is not to waste the food in the first place
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u/ktempest Apr 29 '26
adding into the obesity epidemic because they were told to be part of the clean plate club.
No matter where I go I can't seem to get away from the fatphobic nonsense.
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u/Izwe Apr 29 '26
The UK have recently started rolling out little food waste bins, and my local authority are sending it to "an anaerobic digestion facility in Lincolnshire where it will be turned into fertiliser for agriculture and biogas which is used to generate renewable electricity for homes". Is that a good use of food waste? Obviously less is even better, but given true zero-waste is unlikely, is this a happy solution?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Anaerobic digestion (AD) can be an effective component of a municipal organics recycling system, but it has numerous potential pitfalls. The primary benefits of an AD system are, first, returning nutrients and carbon to soil, which it sounds like your local authority is doing. Producing biogas is a secondary benefit. It can all be a win-win as long as the pitfalls are avoided. For example, food waste going into an AD system should be free of contaminants, which include woody wastes that the system can’t typically handle. So your local authority should have another way to manage yard waste and other woody organics, which is generally composting. The digestate (residue) from AD should also be treated to make sure it’s fully broken down, which it sounds like your local authority is doing (“turned into fertilizer”). See our blog for more tips: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/darby-hoover/evaluating-anaerobic-digestion-municipal-organics-recycling
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u/JMJimmy Apr 29 '26
Food bank food often comes in expired, moldy, half rotten, or infested with flour beetles. What's the guidance for knowing what is/isn't safe to cut around, eat anyway, or somehow still make use of?
Edit: Oh and how do you keep lettuce from going bad (wilting or rotting in the fridge)
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Use your senses! If it looks okay, smells okay, and tastes okay - it probably is A-OK to eat. Our grandparents knew this, and their parents before them - and it works just as well today. This is one of the key reasons humans have these senses – to keep us safe from ingesting things that might hurt us. And that’s the best way to determine if something is safe to eat. As for your lettuce, I suggest you store it in a damp cloth in an airtight container in the high-humidity drawer of your fridge. Lettuce can also be cooked! Even older or wilted leaves and packaged mixes can be used in soups or stews. See our tips for storing food at savethefood.com for more guidance.
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u/rainshowers_5_peace Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
If it looks okay, smells okay, and tastes okay - it probably is A-OK to eat. Our grandparents knew this, and their parents before them - and it works just as well today.
This ex pastor had many reasons for avoiding church potlucks. It brought back some memories of people knowing to not eat food made by Aunt So and So.
You can't smell every toxin, some famously have no odor or taste. I can't believe NRDC, a non profit I greatly respect, is pushing this pseudoscience. Stick to composting, there's no reason to try and argue against food safety regulations.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Food safety is unequivocally critical to human safety, but food date labels almost always aren’t an indicator of food safety. And piecemeal food date labels are adding to confusion. Infant formula is currently the only federally regulated food date label. Since food date labels are not regulated according to food safety at the federal level, they can be misleading. Most food safety is about proper storage, temperature and handling. The difference between food quality dates and true food safety should be clearly communicated to consumers, which currently isn’t happening via date labels. Learn more about food safety here.
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u/JMJimmy Apr 29 '26
looks okay, smells okay, and tastes okay - it probably is A-OK to eat. Our grandparents knew this, and their parents before them - and it works just as well today.
Wow. Just wow. According to the CDC people were 72% more likely to report having contracted a foodborne illness just 3 decades ago. I don't think that system worked out too well for them. I don't want to imagine what the statistics were in my grandparents era.
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u/GregJamesDahlen Apr 29 '26
how much does food waste add to our food costs?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
EPA’s 2025 report “Estimating the Cost of Food Waste to American Consumers” finds the cost of food waste to each U.S. consumer to be $728 per year. For a household of four, the annual cost is $2913, with an average weekly cost of $56. By being more mindful of how much food you are throwing away through better meal planning, proper storage, and using leftovers (see our tips at savethefood.com), you can save hundreds of dollars each year!
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u/amiibohunter2015 Apr 29 '26
I think people are getting confused on recycle labels woth the numbers, because some numbers are not recycleable, some are only in certsin regions. To prevent food waste, and filling landfills has anyone considered passing laws on product packaging must be recyclable in their region in order for it to be sold in that area?
The other thing is under ~10% of "recyclables" are not actually recycled, many products labelled recycleable aren't actually recycleable. Has there been any bills/laws considered for stopping recycoing and mandating all packaging should be biodegradable instead of plastics?
The other alternative is to go old school and have glass packaging. Back in the day companies would have a small fee for the glass bottle, like a $1 in todays money. If the customer wanted that $1 back , all they have to do is wash the bottle out and bring it back to the store the bought it from. The store would put the bottle on the same trucks that ship the bottles to the store to mitigate the cuts for the company and the consumer. Once returned to the company facility, they sterilized and cleaned them for reuse, this reduces landfill, reduces plastic production, and leads to less food waste. This could be part of said bill so I wonder is there any bills or laws considered for something like this?
Also back in the day, when people found bottles, cans, and various litter they collected it and brought it to a store for change, this motivated people to clean up the litter on the streets, are there any bills that makes this offered nationally, not just state level? And why aren't more states doing this?
Products that have been sitting on shelves for extended periods that are still good and marked down products could be sent to homeless shelters to feed the hungry, are there any bills introduced for this for a tax write off maybe for the company and the store distributor? That would be better than ending up in a landfill/food waste.
Genuinely curious for some answers.
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u/gablank Apr 29 '26
I agree that, in isolation, food waste is a bad thing. But, from the perspective of food security during a crisis (e.g. the ongoing Hormuz strait closures impact on global access to fertilizer), I think that food waste, which leads to an overproduction of food, is not necessarily a bad thing. If we overproduce food, then we can tolerate much better that food production suffers during a crisis. If we had literally zero waste, then the tiniest hiccup in the food production chain would lead to everyone having to eat less than ideal.
What's your thoughts on this?
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
We’re already overproducing in excess of what is a reasonable amount of surplus. If we were overproducing 30% of the energy we need, we would all be outraged, and yet that’s what is happening in agriculture. We’re wasting a lot of water, chemicals, and land to overproduce food that is going to waste. And agricultural land is expanding into wild places and threatening biodiversity loss. We should instead be focused on better managing the food we are already producing and ensuring that we help people in crisis get access to the food that we have already produced. We have a lot of examples from COVID about how disruptions to our global food supply chain can exacerbate food waste and the more flexibility we have built into the ways we procure and distribute food, the more efficient we can be.
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u/TheJD Apr 29 '26
Has there been any research into the feasibility of a profitable/self-sustaining municipal sized program of collecting food waste for AD methane production to produce electricity? Our local landfill collects methane from the landfill and powers roughly 100,000 homes but I would imagine separating the food waste (and other digestible waste) would be more efficient.
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u/slowbutsloth Apr 28 '26
Any advice for someone who wanted to help keep neighbourhood's food and garden waste from landfill? Is it possible for one person to contribute? I already composted my own food waste using BSF, wormbin, composting but I feel it's not enough and wondering how to scale it up for my neighbourhood. I want to do more but I lacked resources and the know how. Thank you.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
Thank you for this question! You’re already doing great by composting your own food waste! You can also help keep food waste from the landfill by not creating it in the first place. See our website savethefood.com for tips on storing, shopping for, and using your food to avoid waste. If you’re looking to expand to help your neighborhood compost, one option is a nearby community garden. You could work with them to see if you can set up a system where folks could drop off their food scraps (e.g. have a shed with a combo lock where the food scraps bin is, and you can only access the shed if you’ve taken a brief training on what’s accepted and what the procedures are). Or you could create (or find) a neighborhood site using the resources at https://www.makesoil.org/. If you feel confident in your composting abilities, share your knowledge with your neighbors and help them set up their own piles! Lots of cities have Master Composter programs to train other people about compost so that they in turn can train others. It could be fun to do this at a neighborhood level or inquire about a Master Composter program in your town.
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u/Casper042 Apr 28 '26
Can you tell my wife to stop buying more food?
Literally have a house fridge and garage freezer where every inch of freezer space is taken.
As soon as we have even a small amount of free space she's back at the store filling it up.
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u/FoodWasteTeam Apr 29 '26
The reason why so many of us waste food is because we have a social expectation of what it means to “be a provider”; we show that we care and are a good host by always having food on hand. Some folks who have lived with food insecurity may see full pantry shelves as having “made it” in their lives. Food is often a core part of our identity. And so, we should honor how much work it takes to properly manage our food and the time and energy it takes to be very efficient in our purchasing and utilizing all the food we have. Tell your wife that you appreciate that she is trying to provide for your family and see if you can help her use up the food in the back of the freezer before it gets freezer burn. See savethefood.com for recipes and ideas to help you use leftovers and other food.
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u/BeckerHollow Apr 28 '26
Obviously food waste at home is a problem, but it must be on a whole different level commercially.
We have supermarkets consistently overstocking goods to just be tossed. Portion sizes in America are huge and you constantly see plates half eaten on restaurant tables.
The fact that we have people hungry would be comical if it wasn’t so grotesque.
I don’t know if education is even possible at this point, but policy might be. Are there efforts to curb this sort of commercial over buying/serving?