Questions I Had—Waste

Because we’re a huge proponent of renewable energy, we—the lovers of solar and all things clean energy—often have questions about things like trash, pollution, energy waste, and what else we can do to minimize our carbon footprint so as not to continue ruining this beautiful planet of ours.

In this article, we’re going to address a question about two main household consumables: how much food and how much water does the average household waste? We’ll also talk about some of the things you can do to minimize your waste impact for those two consumables. Let’s get into it.

How much food does the average household waste?

Would you be shocked to know that the average household throws away about ⅓ of the food that they buy, pick, cook, and/or eat every year?¹ Think of it this way: if you eat three meals a day, that’s like dumping one of them straight into the garbage can. Yikes. Seems like an unnecessary waste of food.

Researchers found that the average U.S. household wastes 32% of their food, which amounts to almost $2,000 a year.² Guess what? That amount of wasted food comes with its own environmental consequences. Some experts estimate that food waste is responsible for about 3.3 gigatons of greenhouse gas annually.³ “But wait, exactly how does food waste impact greenhouse emissions? Isn’t throwing away food just putting natural ingredients back into nature?” I hear you asking it, and it’s a good thought. What’s the correlation between wasted food and greenhouse gases?

The answer is—like everything in life—a little complicated. There are two main parts of the food waste process that contribute to increased greenhouse gases: upstream production and downstream production, and we’re not even going to focus on upstream production today; just downstream production.

For those curious types, upstream production has to do with things like manufacturing, energy costs, expended natural resources, food processing, transportation, storage, purchasing, and cooking. All of those things contribute to a negative environmental impact to our planet. But, because this article is only focusing on food waste, we’re only going to talk about downstream impact, meaning anything to do with food waste after the point that it would have been consumed but wasn’t.

So, where does the greenhouse gas impact come from? There are a lot of different factors, but the two big ones are:

- Carbon emissions from transportation. If you don’t toss your scraps in the garbage disposal or add them to the compost heap, chances are that your food waste goes into the trash. And on trash day, that waste is picked up by a garbage truck where it is taken to the dump (most likely). The carbon emissions from garbage trucks alone contribute a huge amount to air pollution. Because they run on diesel, but only average about 3 miles per gallon, garbage trucks burn about $42,000 of fuel per year and emit about 20 times the carbon emissions of the average US home.⁴

- Methane emissions from food production. In landfills, wasted food is broken down through a process called Anaerobic (AE) decomposition. The result of AE decomp. is a huge uptick in methane gas; a greenhouse gas that is at least 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.⁵

Those are just the factors of food production. Let’s take a look at the impact of water waste on our planet.

How much water does the average household waste?

In the U.S. alone, experts say that we waste about 2 trillion gallons of water per year. Do some quick math and that’s about 15,500 gallons per household. Think of it this way: that’s enough wasted water per household to fill 3-4 bathtubs every week.

So, why does that matter?

In a 2014 Government Accountability Report, state water managers have predicted some sort of water shortage, in your average life conditions, within some part of their area, in the next decade.⁶ We rely on things like clean water, good hygiene, working toilets, and other basic necessities water provides that keep us healthy. Water shortages impact farming, food production, waste management, and other things that we often take for granted. Ultimately, the truth comes down to the fact that droughts are scary things and a lack of water is something we don’t want to be messing with. Let’s not go poking that bear, shall we?

What can I do to help my household reduce its overall waste?

This is the question we care about most and the answer is much simpler than you might think. To cut down on your food and water waste, the changes you’ll want to make in your daily routine are pretty small and easy to do. Here are a few suggestions:

For food waste:
- Get better at grocery shopping. Make lists before you go to the store and try to plan out specific meals for the week so you only buy what you need.
- Try your hand at composting. If you have space, and like the outdoors, it may be a new fun way to pass the time.
- At the very least, try throwing those food scraps in the garbage disposal instead of the trash.

For water waste:
- Try fixing those leaky appliances. A single leaky faucet or running toilet can waste hundreds of gallons of water without you even realizing it.
- Turn off the water while you do things like brushing your teeth, scrubbing your dishes, or washing your face.
- Set a time limit for your showers. See how efficiently you can wash your body without spending longer than twenty minutes under that indoor waterfall of yours.

We know that’s only a few suggestions, but they should reduce the amount of waste coming from your household, and may even improve the negative impacts on your wallet as well.

We hope this information was helpful—or at least eye-opening. For additional questions, feel free to check out some of our other great topics, like “Questions I had—pollution.”

Endnotes:
¹ Sharkey, Lauren. “How much food does the average US household waste?” Medical News Today. Healthline Media UK Ltd, Brighton, UK. Published February 9, 2020. Accessed August, 14, 2020.
² Americans waste nearly a pound of food each per day, study finds.” CBS News. Published April 18, 2018. Accessed August 14, 2020.
³ “Food Waste FAQs.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food and Nutrition. Updated November 2014. Accessed August 14, 2020.
⁴ Coren, Michael J. “The economics of electric garbage trucks are awesome.” QUARTZ. Published August 4, 2016. Accessed August 17, 2020.
⁵ The climate impact of the food in the back of your fridge.” Washington Post. Published August 4, 2016. Accessed August 17, 2020.
⁶ “Statistics and Facts.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. WaterSense. Published January 23, 2017. Accessed August 17, 2020.