TPSS COOP Food Waste Prevention Campaign
National Food Waste Prevention Week kick off, April 7 – 13, 2025, is an annual event and aims to educate and inspire cultural change around food waste to help families save money, reduce the negative impact of food waste on the environment, and address community hunger. Food waste presents a global, national, and local problem.
In the United States, 40% of food is lost or wasted, costing annually an estimated $218 billion or 1.3% of GDP. Food accounts for 24% of solid waste in U.S. landfills, and is the third largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States. In 2023, the Montgomery County Dept of Environmental Protection estimated that 97,000 pounds of food waste were thrown into the trash resulting in negative environmental impacts and lost natural and financial resources.
Food waste in landfill trash releases methane, a highly toxic greenhouse gas. Composting food waste reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves soil health when it is added to gardens. Yet, wasted food results in wasted resources that were utilized to produce, harvest, and transport that food from farm to consumers tables. Project Drawdown ranks preventing food waste (i.e., source reduction) as a top global mitigation strategy. This high ranking occurs because preventing food waste avoids all the GHG emissions that occur along the supply chain for producing and disposing food, from emissions from land use to support the production of wasted food through emissions from incineration or landfill disposal.
Food waste comprises both (1) food scraps – non-edible portions of food, ie skins, husks, and bones, and (2) wasted food – the edible portions that were not eaten because of spoilage, households grew tired of eating it, or the food was considered inferior as a leftover. Research in other states has demonstrated that 70% of food waste collected in the trash was at one time edible. Throwing away food results in lost resources to both producers and consumers. The EPA estimates that on average, a family of four spends almost $3000 per year on food that never gets eaten. Thus, the most beneficial strategy for the environment and our wallets is to prevent food waste altogether.
Households play an important part in reducing the nation’s food waste. This role requires behavioral changes in how consumers think about food from when they plan meals, shop at the grocery store, manage the food at home, and to eventually consuming it. The retail food sector can help consumers reduce wasting food by packaging food in manageable quantities and encouraging them to buy only what they will eat and to manage food appropriately to ensure maximum shelf life at home.
While consumers can benefit from how food is marketed and whether messaging on food waste occurs at the time of purchase from their favorite retailer or farmer’s markets, few retailers have gotten into the game. On the West Coast, Washington has engaged with Safeway to develop a state-wide campaign to engage with consumers at the store about food waste. This partnership was considered a first and applauded by national and state food waste organizations. In Takoma Park, the COOP is taking the initiative to educate consumers about the negative impact of food waste and how to shop to prevent its occurrence.
I applaud the COOP for taking this important action and making it an issue for its shoppers.
Janet Owens
Takoma Park Sustainable Maryland Committee