The Inability of America to Deal With Food Waste

As we approach the first quarter marker of the 21st century, it has become abundantly clear that American mindset, in regards to waste management, is in direct conflict with the needs of the human race. The United States, along with several other countries, have failed to implement standards of waste management and think conservatively with regards to food production and consumption while millions across the world go hungry. It is integral to the future of our country and species that environmentally minded legislation be passed to help combat not only world hunger but also climate change when nutrient waste management, or lack thereof, creates large amounts of greenhouse gases which further contribute to global warming. There must be a radical change in our mindset to ail the damages we have caused to our planet; and that change must start in the Capitol. As people continue to innovate in this field, the legislation has not managed to keep up. California mandates that corporations who produce 4 cubic yards of solid waste per week must compost, anaerobically digest, or recycle it. This mandate is part of a larger goal set by the state that aims to recycle 75% of waste by this year.

Although, locally, California is progressive in regard to waste management, national standards haven’t been set. That being said, it is necessary for there to be globally recognized standards for recycling of goods, energy retrieved from organic waste, and limits to the amount of waste that is landfilled. This is to say, that there should be a globally recognized goal for 0% organic waste being sent to landfills by the year 2035. The most economically stimulating alternative to landfilling waste is anaerobic digestion, as you recapture the most energy and produce fertilizers at the same time; areas with less developed waste management infrastructure can result in composting their waste instead.

Landfills have been the foremost solution for trash in the United States. Like many of America’s problems, our solution was to literally sweep it under the rug and wait for something to go wrong. Suficit to say, things went wrong. When bio waste is exposed to landfill conditions, it begins to decompose inside this underground pile of garbage and, as a result, produces large amounts of methane gas. Essentially the natural gas that is obtained from fracking and drilling is being produced by food waste inside landfills. The issue with the method of biomethane production, besides the fact that we are trying to hide our trash, is that it cannot properly be cultivated and used efficiently. Subsequently, landfills often burn this natural gas with no productive means besides eliminating the smell and keeping the methane from further deteriorating our atmosphere(Smith Lecture). Furthermore, this biogas can be absorbed by the soil around it and impact the natural ecosystems in the area, especially if it contaminates an underground water source(Smith Lecture). In Los Angeles, 12 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste is generated annually and 76% of that is recycled(Okkels Larson). This statistic shows that Los Angeles is the best city in America when it comes to recycling our waste. Additionally it shows that policies implemented in the city of Los Angeles that mandate recycling and other waste alternatives are working the way they should and providing positive change. However, many landfills within Los Angeles have been around for a long time and are still active. “The city’s plan?” you may ask, expand them (Rosengren). The Santa Clarita landfill, for example, has been operating for 40 years and amidst residential claims that it is overflowing, Waste Management has called for expanding the site and pumping more trash into the landfill(Rosengren). We can act all high and mighty in California, but when the rubber hits the road, Los Angeles, or at least the city government, still relies on archaic waste management infrastructure.

The next alternative for food waste is composting, an organic way of recycling food. The process of composting involves aerobic bacteria breaking down organic waste and releasing all sorts of nutrients stored inside. The products of composting are compost, essentially fertilizer that is nutrient rich to the max and is great for mixing with soil when growing crops. The benefits of composting are tremendous as it provides a way for organic waste to be recycled for the betterment of society. Perhaps the most progressive and eco-friendly aspect of composting is that there is no biomethane produced when the composting process is exposed to oxygen (Smith Lecture). Unfortunately, there is one really big downside to composting, and it says a lot about our society. Compost sites tend to release a pretty pungent odor as a product of aerobic bacteria’s natural digestion process. This smell is a real reason for why many people don’t tend to compost and raises the “not in my backyard” dilemma (Smith Lecture). This problem is that people love the idea of composting, but tend to stay away from it because they don’t want the smell to be a factor in their life. This problem people have with composting won’t be an issue in the future as more people, hopefully, realize the impacts of climate change and take up arms to help in the fight. Recently, people in LA have even discussed composting human bodies as an alternative to cremation, which contributes a pretty large amount of carbon emissions each year (The Times Editorial Board). The composting of human bodies recently became a legal alternative to cremation in Washington State, and Angelino sentiment toward the matter, and composting in general, shows that this “not in my backyard” attitude is not a part of LA culture as this is a very discussed alternative to incineration in Los Angeles (The Times Editorial Board). However, composting may be widely accepted and encouraged in Los Angeles but it’s not all peaches and cream. CompostLA has had a very active presence getting people behind the movement and promoting composting by pairing up with residential composting sites(Chiotakis). However, if you want to compost at one of their sites you need to apply and only 8 out of their 32 active composting sites are accepting new members(Chiotakis). Composting needs to be much more accessible for Angelinos far and wide to make positive contributions to our community. Thankfully, this lack of supply is backed by heavy, heavy demand from across the city, showing that our citizens want to be as proactive as possible(Chiotakis).

The last of these food waste alternatives is anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion is a process which breaks down organic waste using anaerobic bacteria and, from a maximization standpoint, AD is the best thing that people could be doing with their organic wastes. Class A biosolids, nutrient rich fertilizers, are produced as a byproduct of anaerobic digestion (Iranpour pg. 1). In a study done at the Hyperion Treatment Plant in Los Angeles, it was shown that it is possible to reduce the amount of methane gas produced at AD facilities by lowering the temperature in the plant’s digesters as well as keeping the temperature relatively low during the transport of the fertilizers(Iranpour pg. 4). Furthermore, a study by professors at the University of California and Rice University showed that the co-management of waste water and bioorganic waste could increase the energy recaptured by food waste by 62% when using an anaerobic biomembrane reactor(Becker pg. 5). By using an anaerobic biomembrane reactor and co-managing waste water and organic waste, one facility is able to make sewage water potable for human consumption and use the sludge to make fertilizer and biomethane. Major steps are being taken in Los Angeles to expand our biomethane production. Currently, the sanitation department is working within the existing infrastructure at the Puente Hills material recovery facility (Karidis). Like the research by Becker et. al suggests, the co-management of wastewater purification and anaerobic digestion of biosolids is the most efficient way to manage both processes and is what is currently being done in Los Angeles in Puente Hills and at the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant (pg. 3). It is estimated that the Puente Hills MRF will be able to handle about 25% of the municipal solid waste generated by Angelinos (Karidis). This research and developments show that LA is trending in a good direction as far as biogas is concerned and, hopefully, we will continue to upgrade our infrastructure to be able to retrieve as much energy as possible from the food waste crisis.

On a national level, we have set a goal to cut food waste by 50% by the year 2030, this means that the average American will produce 109 lbs of solid organic waste annually compared to 218 lbs per year in 2015(Food Waste in America). Currently, that number is still at 219 lbs of waste per year, which shows that our national government has not made any serious strides since the past election to reduce this consumption number. This lack of change shows the inability to take action when the environment is concerned due to increasing political partisanship and gridlock in our country. This is not true everywhere. Thanks to America’s belief in a federalist system, our state governments have been able to impose laws to keep municipal solid waste out of landfills. Through landfill diversion mandates, states like California, New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have managed to promote recycling and prevent biomethane generation in landfills. With Ab 341 in California which mandates any corporate entity, or multifamily living building with at least 5 units, that produce 4 cubic yards or more of waste must recycle or anaerobically digest their organics to keep it from ending up in landfills(California). In Maryland, they established a mandatory recycling rate of 20% for counties with a population less than 150,000 and 35% with a population greater than 150,000(Maryland DOE). In the state of New York, any business that generates two tons of wasted food each week must compost/anaerobically digest it if they live within 25 miles of an organics recycler; New York City has a zero waste plan which outlines a 90% reduction of landfill waste by the year 2030 by increasing their organic recycling infrastructure(New York State DOEC). These differences across states exemplify the idea of federalism, as each state is responsible for deciding what they believe is the best course of action. That being said, we are approaching a critical point in our fight against climate change and dramatically different policies pursued by each state are a cause for alarm when uniform policies and standards must be implemented to make a difference.

Because climate change doesn’t just affect urban cities but works uniformly across the globe, one city, state, or country can’t expect for lasting change to be seen if there is not a global effort. This is true for all climate related issues, and is why a global approach is necessary if real change is to be made. That being said, the United States has been responsible for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions globally(Food Waste in America). This stat further argues that although some nations are changing their behavior, unless large countries whose economic industries are heavily reliant on fossil fuels make a change the impact of other nations becomes negligible. Because of this global imbalance in greenhouse gas production it is prudent that the United States change their behavior. Looking at what other powerhouse countries are doing with respect to waste management heavily foreshadows the growth organics recycling technology and laws in the coming years.

In Europe, the amount of biogas production from anaerobic digestion of organic waste is much larger than our production in the United States. The European Union (EU) makes up 50% of global biogas production(Scarlat pg. 1). They have also been greatly increasing their use of biogas for electricity and now have a biogas electricity capacity of 10 MW which, compared to a global total of 15 MW of biogas electricity, is an enormous amount (Scarlat pg. 2). At the turn of the century, North America and Europe had the same energy production from biogas, 20 years later Europes has grown exponentially while little to no investment has been made in North America (Scarlat pg. 4).While biogas is just a different form of natural gas, their investment in boosting their biogas production and capacity provides a net environmental gain. Natural gas is procured by fracking, drilling, and sometimes even blowing up mountain tops which is not only energy indussive but is extremely harmful to surrounding ecosystems. Biogas, on the other hand, is considered a renewable energy source because it is derived from food waste and, although the process requires a good amount of energy, it is a step towards a net zero emission world (Smith Lecture). Aside from benefits concerning the fight against climate change, the culture regarding food waste in Europe is tremendously different than it is in America.

In their fight against world hunger, many European nations make it difficult for a food nexus, such as a supermarket, to throw out their food. In France, supermarkets are required to pair up with a food waste NGO that will redistribute food when it has not been purchased and can be fined up to €3,750 for each infraction(Matamaros). In the United Kingdom, new legislation that dissents throwing away food is being passed into action as their goal is to redistribute close to 150,000 tonnes of food, close to 250 million meals, per year(Department for Food Environment and Rural Affairs). However, this thought is not uniform across all of Europe. In Germany, for example, food is considered someone’s property until whatever sanitation company picks it up; this means that people can, and have been, fined for “dumpster diving” fresh food from grocery stores(Matamaros). While the European population makes up a significant percentage of the global population, they’re food waste per/capita is slightly less than that of the United States, producing 80 million tonnes of food waste across a population of about 714 million people(Food Waste: the Problem in the EU in Numbers). In this article which also shows where food is wasted, nearly 50% of waste comes from household consumers and shows that 60% of people don’t know what the “used by” and 53% don’t know what the “best by” label means(Food Waste: the Problem in the EU in Numbers). These numbers are expected to decline greatly in the coming years as European countries continue to pass food waste legislation and, hopefully, educate their population.

As seen by the data obtained from case studies throughout Europe, food waste legislation is making a difference. They are producing more GW of energy from food waste than the rest of the world and they still promote the reduction of food waste even though it’s a natural energy resource for them. It is clear that a global approach to food waste and discard similar to the perspectives of European countries can help to build a better world for the future and feed millions of people who are going hungry. I propose that the UN mandate regulation of food waste on a global level. By imposing legislation that requires countries to either commit to recycle 100% of their organic waste or redistribute food to a level of efficiency near 75% of food that would otherwise be discarded be given to nonprofits whose aim is to provide food for those in need. It is clear that there is an income inequality crisis around the world, and much of that contributes to people not being able to afford food and, oftentimes, scouring through dumpsters to meet their human needs. This is a humanitarian crisis where so much change can clearly be made as the technology already exists and can be integrated within countries’ wastewater management systems. Unfortunately, this process will require a lot of government funding which is a factor that discourages many government officials, regardless of their political affiliations, from taking action. That being said, it is still very feasible to achieve the UN sustainability goal of erasing world hunger within the current century.

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