Food Waste Research Paper

Connors 1

Cheyenne Connors

Professor McGee

English 132-017

8 May 2015

Minimizing Food Waste When Surrounded by Constant Abundance

Once something is thrown away, the majority of people stop thinking about it. Yet, food

is a prevalent waste item in the United States. When people become full or do not fully enjoy

something, they start again with a whole new plate of food. Few people stop and think about the

resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food that is thrown away casually. Food

waste is an all-encompassing issue facing our community and the world. A substantial amount of

resources and money are put into producing our food and, yet, massive amounts of food are

thrown away, without a second thought. Solutions can be implemented on a university scale.

Stephen F. Austin State University needs to lead the community in showing responsible

consumption of our food and resources. Stewardship is a key to establishing a cleaner, kinder

future in Nacogdoches. More can be done with our food waste than people know with plans such

as simple aerobic composting for the university to utilize and sell or implementing a farsighted

plan to power the school with an anaerobic composter. The campus should be taking more steps

to reduce how much waste is produced. There also should be a strict system which tracks waste

production and publishes yearly results. There are solutions and there can be actions. It is both

possible and worth the effort.

Food waste is any material that is discarded before or after consumption. According to

Dr. Sheryll Jerez, an associate professor of environmental science at SFA, in 2012 there was “34

million tons” of food waste put into landfills in the United States. Such massive amounts of food

1 National Corn Growers Association2Water Environment Research Foundation

Connors 2

waste have destructive effects on the surrounding environment. It is important to recognize the

complexity of these processes because it can affect the ground and underground processes as

well as atmospheric activities. Scientists have found that liquids from waste food will seep out of

the landfills and infiltrate the soil. If not monitored, liquid in large amounts could seep down into

groundwater supplies. Food waste also may contaminate the soil surrounding the landfill which

will have an adverse effect on soil processes. Such deleterious effects harm delicate soil deposits

which are a key non-renewable resource. Bacteria in the landfill are simultaneously acting on the

food in the oxygen-less environment. Bacterial processes create acid which corrodes the material

of the landfill over time and release methane into the atmosphere (Jerez). The activity of food

waste is not limited to the inside of a landfill since it does not just biodegrade. Recognizing the

need to divert food from landfills is an imperative step towards finding long term solutions.

Understanding how resources are controlled is not only an extension of stewardship, but,

also a general part of life. Whether the general public realizes it or not, food waste does affect

each person. Consider a loaf of bread. An average loaf of bread has a carbon footprint of

approximately 1.244L CO2 (Espinoza 351). Imagine the amount of bread in a local grocery store.

There is an extensive carbon footprint involved in food production of the total bread in stores. To

put this in perspective, the amount of carbon dioxide an average person exhales is nearly 19L of

CO2 per hour (NYT n.pag). There is supplementary carbon dioxide being emitted by a week’s

supply of bread in the grocery store than a person exhales in an entire year. There are

greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing foods, shipping foods, cooking foods, and

disposing of foods. “Food wastage's carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tons of CO2

equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year,” (FAO n.pag). The whole process of

creating a loaf of bread takes a toll on the environment. This is all on the grounds that a


Connors 3

consumer just “might be in the mood” for bread this week. There are other options that can

employ food products before and after the best-used-by date. It is unwarranted to be producing

this amount of greenhouse gas for the purpose of filling a landfill. From there, it is not

challenging to account for what is accreting on global scales as a result of food production and

waste. There is undoubtedly food waste accreting on the SFA campus.

The SFA campus food company, Aramark, provided food waste reports for the month of

March on campus. The graphical representation (below) of food waste accounts for the pounds

of waste over the number of days the vendors were open. The Student Center and East College

cafeterias were open for 19 days, the largest number of operating days on campus. These

locations produce thousands of pounds of pre-consumer waste. The smaller vendors on campus,

such as Chick-fil-A, were open only 17 days and serve during more restricted hours. These

locations, nevertheless, still produce hundreds of pounds of waste. Only some of the production

food waste goes to the Native Plant Center for composting. The remaining food waste might

actually be useful if it was not being packed, gathered, shipped, and then packed again to be put

into the local landfill. Although many useful solutions lie in the realm of reducing waste, there

are still other more efficient options in dealing with these mass quantities.


Connors 4

0200400600800

10001200140016001800200022002400260028003000

1514

10

319 410

66 156

1634

53 55

1274

83 0 27148 113

836

54 68

2788

186319

437237 269

2470

107 123

Production Waste (lb)

Service Waste (lb)

Storage Waste (lb)

Total Waste (lb)

Total Food Waste at SFASU for March 2015

Am

ount

of F

ood

Was

te (l

b)

Location on SFASU Campus

Average Dura-tion:

16 days

Food waste audits and financial information should be available to the public, conducted

regularly, and with precision. Whether there are posters displaying the information or a monthly

report printed with The Pine Log, the students should be kept informed. Keeping the public

informed and aware of the amounts of food waste will promote the public to participate in

finding solutions. Just because the cafeteria is run by a private company does not mean its

operations are not falling under state university funding. The State of Texas requires the

university to publish expenditures and incomes, but nowhere could it be found how much money

is paid to this private company, Aramark, that has become an integral part of the campus. It does

not make sense that a public state university is required to publish its fiscal actions, but a private

company working inside the university is exempt from doing so. Do you know what your very


Connors 5

expensive meal plan is paying for? If the university wants to charge students hundreds of dollars

to eat in the state owned cafeteria, there should be open records on how the company running the

cafeteria conducts itself and the real costs of its operations. Not only that, but waste reports need

to be a part of their official documentation. The information found for the pre-consumer waste

was based off of screen shots from a private waste tracking program. Aramark managers had to

provide the information with their personal logins. The public is entitled to know what is being

spent and what is being wasted by Aramark.

In the spring semester of 2015, as an effort to quantify officially the post-consumer

waste, a small group of students conducted a waste audit in the Student Center cafeteria. To

conduct the waste audit, the students set up a waste collection area just in front of the usual plate

drop zone. The students then proceeded to take peoples’ plates and separate food, paper, plastic,

and other materials, such as wooden corn dog sticks, into separate bins. When a bin became full,

the students weighed, recorded and emptied the bin for further use. From the operating hours

between four to eight o’clock, 718 people had eaten dinner and produced a total of 188.1lbs of

waste. Based on the amount, we can imagine the waste produced over a day or an entire year.

165.2lbs of the waste produced by consumers was food alone. In addition, there is the added

food waste produced by the kitchen during production that had to be quantified. This brings the

total food waste for the evening to 322.2lbs. If every meal at the Student Center was to produce

this much food waste, there would be more than an entire full sized, SUV’s worth of waste going

into a landfill every week (Hakim 1). Only small portions of this waste are diverted to the Native

Plant Center. This is a gross over production of waste. SFA can cut down on waste production

and find innovative solutions to deal with what is deemed unavoidable. People have even

recognized this issue on other college campuses.


Connors 6

There are universities all over the country who have recognized this problem and taken

responsibility for installing solutions. Texas State University in San Marcos is a prime example

of a student run composting program. They have set themselves apart by researching how to

compost with invasive species and mixed consumer waste. The school composts not only

consumer waste from the cafeterias, but also invasive aquatic plants that are harming the

environment (Sullivan 66). The University of California in Davis has an exceedingly ambitious

program. Their anaerobic composting network is expected to reduce greenhouse emissions by

“13,500 tons” annually and will produce “5.6 million kWh per year” of renewable electricity

(UCDavis n.pag ). The biodigester has allowed the school to be less dependent on paying outside

companies to produce energy with coal or natural gas. There always will be garbage produced,

yet, it is gratuitous that the waste itself be wasted when there are so many options on how to

make use of it again. Making changes may seem to be less beneficial than the changing process

is worth. That, however, is not the case for either of these universities.

Some may think that the costs of making a change will outweigh the future benefits. Yet,

WERF2 conducted a study showing the costs and benefits of various food waste treatment

options. “Out of all the five food waste management alternatives examined, the practice of using

landfills to dispose of food waste had the highest carbon footprint and was the most

costly”(WERF 11). As of today, this practice has the highest cost to fiscal budgets and on the

environment. The costs of producing and filling landfills will continue to grow with rapidly

increasing populations and urban environments. There are other options that are more sustainable

from a financial point of view for communities.

For instance, composting is a common and widely installed method for dealing with

unwanted organic material. Dr. Jared Barnes, an Assistant Professor of Horticulture, defines


Connors 7

composting as “the biological reduction of recognizable organic waste into unrecognizable

organic compounds like humus” (Barnes). In other words, composting is the breakdown of

organic matter like food, into a soil-like material that boosts soil and plant health. The chemical

process requires the proper balance of materials, for instance, leafy, green materials “which

contain large amounts of nitrogen”, and other materials such as “branches, wood chips,” which

“contain large amounts of carbon” (EPA n.pag). The best materials for composting gardens or

agricultural fields are fruits, vegetables, leaves, and grass. This type of material composts best

without the presence of animal products. As explained by Dr. Barnes, the animal products

contain fats that break down using different types of bacteria. As long as it is organic material,

though, there is a way to incorporate it in compost. Producing compost helps reduce “the need

for supplemental water, fertilizers, and pesticides” (EPA n.pag). By reusing trash food products,

the university can save money on grounds management and increase the health of campus soil.

Composting is a simple project that is beneficial for the environment and can divert food waste

from landfills.

Anaerobic composting is a means to divert food waste in a composting system producing

methane gas; the gas, which in turn, is able to power buildings. Anaerobic composting is the

“biological degradation of sludge or solid waste under anaerobic conditions,” which yields

“methane as a source of energy” (Environmental Encyclopedia 1). Anaerobic composting is

different from aerobic composting because it requires the compost container to be sealed and

void of oxygen. To be precise, one type of bacteria that is present under these conditions can

produce acid to break down the food, while another type of bacteria digests the acid producing

bacteria to produce methane (The Urban Farming Guys n.pag). This process does require

attention at first, but, once the balance is established, the digester can produce methane in place


Connors 8

of coal or natural gas. This is exceedingly valuable in comparison to just allowing the food waste

to produce methane in landfills because methane is going to happen somewhere. Although

methane is one of the main components of natural gas, by extracting it from food waste, the

campus would save money though effort would be needed to gather the material and fill the

digester with the available waste. This plan would increase job opportunities and, also, reduce

dependence on outside companies by providing the university with renewable energy. The

process will not be effortless to start up, but, in time, the benefits will outweigh the costs to the

environment, community, and university. There is a myriad of options on how SFA could

incorporate solutions into the campus and how it could be utilized.

Another option is to feed portions of SFA’s food waste to the swine in the Agriculture

department. Studies have shown that feeding pigs with food waste is not detrimental to their

growth. In a study conducted by the American Society of Animal Science, scientists compared

the growth and meat quality of pigs that were fed on a college campus food waste diet versus a

corn-soy bean diet. Evidence suggested that food waste was an “excellent nutritional quality as

indicated by nutrient analysis, digestibility, and protein availability and quality” (Westendorf 9).

Food waste fed to swine not only resulted in a high quality of meat, but, also provided a feasible

solution for post-consumer cafeteria waste. According to studies shown by the EPA and NCGA1

“about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas

livestock, poultry, and fish” (EPA n.pag). Rather than growing corn for feeding to livestock, it

could be feeding people. The monetary and environmental costs of producing corn or soy for

livestock feed are apparent, especially when tons of food waste is getting transported and buried

into landfills, when it could be feeding local swine. Using food waste, therefore, to feed

commercially produced animals is a sustainable option to manage food waste on a massive scale


Connors 9

and eliminate baleful effects from food waste buried in landfills. Plus, this would be a great

opportunity for different groups and colleges to work together across campus.

Intra-college cooperation could bring awareness and show people that SFA works in

unison to solve problems facing the campus and community. For example, students of different

colleges will bring a variety of strengths and viewpoints into understanding and building a

solution. Environmental science and sustainability majors could work with people in engineering

and finance to understand what it would cost to build and install anaerobic composting on

campus. Meanwhile, they can work with people in marketing on how to spread awareness

through the student body and gather funds. Sociology students can conduct research to measure

acceptance rates and responses. Bringing people together to solve a mutual problem can be

invaluable in and of itself, on top of resolving an issue. It gives students real experience and time

to apply their knowledge with other classmates. It also gives students practice in dealing with

different industries and types of people, not to mention that the students can actually solve real-

world problems and earn experience!

There are plenty of options available to the SFA campus and the community when

thinking of dealing with food waste. Small scale group composting projects can get the

university started. In the end, hundreds of pounds of food waste could be diverted from landfills

by using the food waste to feed swine or power the grid through anaerobic digestion. In reality,

there are even more solutions. By gathering people of different skills and backgrounds, new and

creative innovations could put SFA in the forefront of the fight against food waste. Giving

students and staff a real cause, along with the encouragement and support of the university, could

change the way the SFA community thinks about food. Change does not have to live up to its


Connors 10

bad name of strife and difficulty. Stephan F. Austin State University can actually look forward to

change.


Connors 11

Works Cited

"Anaerobic digestion." Environmental Encyclopedia. Gale, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Barnes, Jared. Personal Interview. 7 Apr. 2015.

"Biodigester Turns Campus Waste into Campus Energy : UC Davis News & Information." UC

Davis News & Information. University of California, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.

"Composting Guerrilla Style." The Urban Farming Guys. The Urban Farming Guys, 1 Dec.

2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

"Composting for Facilities." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 27 June 2014. Web. 22

Apr. 2015.

Espinoza-Orias, Namy, Heinz Stichnothe, and Adisa Azapagic. "The Carbon Footprint of

Bread." Springer Science & Business Media 16.4 (2011): 351-65. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Hakim, Danny. "Average U.S. Car Is Tipping Scales at 4,000 Pounds." The New York Times.

The New York Times, 5 May 2004. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

Juarez, Sheryll. Personal Interview. 14 Apr. 2015.

"Major Crops Grown in the United States." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 11 Apr.

2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.

The Urban Farming Guys. "Methane Biodigester How To." YouTube. YouTube, 19 Mar. 2011.

Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

"Texas State Home to Award-winning Composting Program." Texas State Home to Award-

winning Composting Program. The University Star, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.


Connors 12

Food Waste: Global Solutions Exemplified in Nacogdoches,

Stephen F. Austin University

Parry, David L. Sustainable Food Waste Evaluation. Alexandria, VA: WERF, 2012. eBook

Collection EBSCOhost). Web. 15 Apr. 2015.

The Water Environment Research Foundation is a nonprofit, independent

scientific research organization who works with the federal government in protecting

water and environmental resources. The foundation conducted research comparing the

applicability of two main responses to dealing with large scale food waste in the United

States.

Although this study was nationwide, it does not technically apply to large scale

businesses and universities. It did, however, prove to be useful in generating ideas that

the university could modify to fit for the Nacogdoches community. The study

investigated five different options in dealing with food waste, two of which directly

connected with this essay. WERF examined the carbon footprint of each option, and

postulated the costs and benefits. When examining if methane can be produced by waste

water facilities and anaerobic digestion and composting, they made steps in finding a

food waste solution. The benefit of using the waste water system as a means to gather

food waste for anaerobic digestion is that there was already infrastructure in place to do

so. Not only that, but, they also thought of a way to collect compost by curb-side, this

reduces food waste in residential areas.

The study was clearly made to reach the masses for the language is easy is

understand and the results are clear. This source was a large supporter to my thesis that

large scale changes can be made. This source inspired me to think about how the systems


Connors 13

in place around the country can be updated without being rebuilt. Yet, an important

question was left on whether or not consumers would be supportive. The entire study

proved to be invaluable.

"Anaerobic digestion." Environmental Encyclopedia. Gale, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Anaerobic digestion is the process of utilizing naturally occurring decomposition

from bacteria to harvest2 methane gas. The methane gas can then be used to power homes

or businesses. The gas is produced in all living mammals and occurs in landfills. The

anaerobic composting set up is designed to capture the gas before it can go into the

atmosphere and convert it to carbon dioxide through combustion. The article was written

for people with a working knowledge of chemistry, but could be understood without it. It

fits into the other research in that it discusses the basic systematics. The article was

extremely helpful in understanding the anaerobic composting process. The article

supported the thesis in giving a clear and unbiased description of anaerobic composting.

Stuart, Tristam. “The Global Food Waste Scandal.” London. TED. May. 2012. Web. 30 March.

2015.

An extremely informative TED talk discussing real figures regarding global food

waste. This data was extremely difficult for Tristam to find and his work will not go

unappreciated. Tristam begins his talk by using anecdotes from adolescence to get in

touch with his audience. After he explains his reasoning for caring about this issue, he

introduces hard data and graphs that would have been difficult to understand without his

explanation.

Sullivan, Dan. "College Students Initiate Food Waste Diversion." BioCycle. Sept. 2010: 65-67.


Connors 14

Web.

Sullivan conducted a series of visits to universities all over the United States to

see efforts being made to deal with food waste. Of the seven universities visited they all

had student run composting programs. One university, University of California, even had

a biogas project in the making. Many of the universities had off campus composting sites,

but a couple had creative composting bins all around the campuses. By locating the

composting bins on campus, more of the student body becomes involved, and less work

is done to gather and transport materials.

In comparison to the other sources in this bibliography, this one is very unique.

Most of the information found was regarding large scale areas and cities rather than

specific universities. The tone of the article was also very positive, while it was

encouraging to see that, it is not necessarily all that is going on in those projects. The

article was most likely reaching out to other students and university officials who may be

compelled to take action against food waste.

The article was very helpful in supporting my thesis. To have a compiled list of

universities making these changes and information on how it is going was extremely

useful. This article shaped my argument by showing my audience that there are people

and universities who feel strongly about reducing food waste. Without including this

article, most of the sources would have been on the fence about implementing solutions.

United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Food wastage: Key

facts and figures. Rome. Web. 31 March. 2015.

This source was a compliment of facts on global food waste. The UN exemplified

data on the impact of food waste and the reverse impact of solutions pertaining to it.


Connors 15

Households generate food waste just as big businesses and countries do; therefore, steps

need to be taken to account for food waste on each level. Otherwise, numbers will

increase and solutions will become more difficult to implement in the future.

The article fits into my research by providing key data that supports my claims.

There is no indication of bias or strong language. The facts, being so plainly stated, are

one sided. There is no blurred point of view from the author, however, the data had

relatively little context. This was seen as a step to finding more information around the

facts. Even though there is relatively little information, the information this source has is

rare and challenging to find.

In supporting the thesis, the concentrated information filled in important areas of

the background the global food waste. Compared to the other sources, this source was

much more cut and dry, not leaning one way or the other. It is organized in a list and is

easy to read and understand. Not only saving time, but this style of organization means

anyone who has access to the article will be able to translate it. The FAO of the UN’s

discussion on food waste was helpful, but could have gone more in depth.

Westendorf, M. L., Z. C. Dong, and P. A. Schoknecht. "Recycled Cafeteria Food Waste as a

Feed for Swine: Nutrient Content Digestibility, Growth, and Meat Quality." Journal of

Animal Science 76. (1998): 2976-983. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

Experiments were conducted by the State University of New Jersey to test the

feasibility of using food waste to feed production pigs. They analyzed cost benefits,

growth rates, nutritive values, texture, and meat quality. This was done by looking at the

nutrients in the food people are throwing away, finding out if this is good feed option for

the pigs, test how well the pigs digest the material, and then assess the quality of the


Connors 16

meat. 40 pigs were, at random, given either a soybean based feed or food waste feed. The

end result was that food waste is a good option for feeding commercial pigs, yet a

limitation is that it must be dried prior to feeding.

The article was arranged similar to other scientific studies, and the authors did not

mind using terminology that the general public wouldn’t understand. The abstract laid out

a clear path to how the experiment was conducted and did not give a detailed explanation

of results. Graphs and charts were very helpful in understanding of the results of the

experiment. Comparing the food waste diet to a corn and soybean based diet was a great

tool in understanding if food waste could be a feed option. Information coming from

outside the study was cited meticulously throughout the text. Also, the study was even

more applicable in that, they used food waste from a university cafeteria, which

corresponds to my claim.

The article was a great source of information regarding nutrition and growth of

pigs. It encouraged me to continue looking into using food waste to feed commercially

produced pigs. Although, it would have been a better find had they discussed the means

and prices of dehydrating food waste for swine consumption. The article as a whole

supports my thesis and helped shape my ideas of how to use food waste. This may be a

better option than composting, but more detailed financial research will have to go on to

support that.


Documents

Food Waste Research Paper