To sniff out specifics, the engineering company Tetra Tech (in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rockefeller Foundation) recruited more than 1,151 residents in Denver, New York, and Nashville. Of these, 631 supplied qualitative info in the form of kitchen diaries noting what they tossed and why. Researchers also inspected the contents of 277 residential trash bins, and 145 containers of commercial or industrial garbage. [...]
The researchers divided trashed food into three categories: stuff that is typically edible, questionably edible (including peels and cores), and inedible (such as pits, bones, and egg shells). They then tallied up findings from the bin digs and kitchen diaries to gauge how much is going to waste in each city. In Denver and New York, residents trashed the majority of the wasted food; in Nashville, the residential and restaurant sectors were neck and neck. [...]
The researchers flag that discrepancy, among other sticking points: At least in New York City, they found that participating in a compost program led to more overall waste, compared with families whose garbage all goes into a single stream. In other words: Compost-happy residents were disposing of more total scraps than residents who just threw the whole lot in the trash. To counter that trend, the report’s authors recommend reminding consumers that “preventing food waste is preferable to composting it.”
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