The EPA estimated that 66.2 million tons of food waste was generated in the U.S. in 2019. An estimated 40% of this waste was generated by households and 40% by the service provider sector. The remaining 20% was generated by food retailers [6]. Recently, some U.S. states have proposed legislation to regulate food waste disposal [7]. For instance, the New York State Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law was implemented to regulate food waste disposal from the sectors of food service providers and retailers. This law requires businesses and institutions that generate an annual average of 2 tons/week of food waste or more to dispose of this waste by donating excess edible food and recycling all remaining food scraps if they are located less than 25 miles from an organics recycling facility, such as composting or anaerobic digester operation [8].
Commercial food waste regulation does not address household sector food waste generation. Although preventing food waste generation and donating edible food is a preferred strategy, collecting and valorizing food waste from the household sector could provide economic and environmental benefits, and contribute to a more circular economy [9]. Previous approaches have assessed the environmental benefits of reducing and recycling food waste in all sectors [10,11]. Other studies have estimated the economic benefits of food waste diversion to treatment facilities using optimization models [12,13]. Therefore, there is an opportunity to assess the economic and environmental benefits of household food waste disposal regulation in the state of New York [14].
In this work, we study the technical feasibility and the economic and environmental benefits of different valorization pathways for household food waste in New York State. We propose a multi-objective optimization model to identify the trade-off solutions that different valorization pathways can provide. We consider integrating existing organic recycling facilities (e.g., composting) with the installation of new organic facilities and the potential for commercial expansion of novel technologies for food waste valorization (e.g., membrane processes). The proposed framework captures the spatial distribution of food waste, including the dichotomy between urban regions, where large amounts of organic waste are generated in specific locations, and rural areas, where the population and household food waste are spread across the territory. The spatial distribution of food waste plays a fundamental role in the selection and location of the valorization processes since it determines their scale and the transportation routes of waste from the generation points to the treatment facilities. We use New York State as a case study for our framework, determining the optimal pathways to address the household food waste management problem.
[1] United Nations Environment Programme (2024). Food Waste Index Report 2024. Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste. https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/45230
[2] Gatto, A., Chepeliev, M. (2024). Global food loss and waste estimates show increasing nutritional and environmental pressures. Nature Food. 5, 136–147.
[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2019). Food: Material-Specific Data. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/food-material-specific-data
[4] U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food Waste FAQs. https://www.usda.gov/about-food/food-safety/food-loss-and-waste/food-waste-faqs
[5] Jaglo, K., Kenny, S., Stephenson, J. (2021). From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste. https://www.epa.gov/land-research/farm-kitchen-environmental-impacts-us-food-waste
[6] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2023). 2019 Wasted Food Report Estimates of generation and management of wasted food in the United States in 2019. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-04/2019-wasted-food-report_508_opt_ec_4.23correction.pdf
[7] Ryen, E. G., & Babbitt, C. W. (2022). The role of US policy in advancing circular economy solutions for wasted food. Journal of Cleaner Production, 369, 133200.
[8] Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) (2021). Food Donation And Food Scraps Recycling Law. https://dec.ny.gov/environmental-protection/recycling-composting/organic-materials-management/food-donation-scraps-recycling-law
[9] Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) (2023). New York Solid Waste Management Plan. https://dec.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/finalsswmp20232.pdf
[10] Read, Q. D., Brown, S., Cuéllar, A. D., Finn, S. M., Gephart, J. A., Marston, L. T., ... & Muth, M. K. (2020). Assessing the environmental impacts of halving food loss and waste along the food supply chain. Science of the Total Environment, 712, 136255.
[11] Thyberg, K. L., & Tonjes, D. J. (2017). The environmental impacts of alternative food waste treatment technologies in the U.S. J. Clean. Prod., 158, 101-108.
[12] Zhao, N.; You, F. (2021). Food-Energy-Water-Waste Nexus Systems Optimization for New York State under the COVID-19 Pandemic to Alleviate Health and Environmental Concerns. Appl. Energy. 282, 116181.
[13] Shahid, K.; Hittinger, E. (2021). Techno-Economic Optimization of Food Waste Diversion to Treatment Facilities to Determine Cost Effectiveness of Policy Incentives. J. Clean. Prod. 279, 122634.
[14] Muth, M. K., Birney, C., Cuéllar, A., Finn, S. M., Freeman, M., Galloway, J. N., ... & Zoubek, S. (2019). A systems approach to assessing environmental and economic effects of food loss and waste interventions in the United States. Science of the Total Environment, 685, 1240-1254.