ReFED, Inc. The Methane - Food Waste Connection Report_Oct 2022_final

The Methane - Food Waste Connection Report_Oct 2022_final Advancing Data-Driven Solutions to Fight Food Waste How Food Waste Solutions Can Drive Methane Mitigation: Understanding Philanthropy's Critical Role OCTOBER 2022 AUTHORED BY Dana Gunders, Minerva Ringland, and Sam Buck Summary Slashing methane emissions is the single most powerful lever we have to limit the impacts of climate change on our. [...] Landfills are the problem of methane emissions at the the third largest contributor to methane emissions source, delivering desired emissions in the United States, and food scraps are the highest reductions along the pathway of the entire volume input to landfills. [...] This means that all the methane emissions associated with raising that livestock, not to mention the water resources, processing emissions, and emissions associated with the waste destinations, are for naught. [...] Higher-order recycling involves converting surplus food to livestock feed, which keeps the value of the material within the food system. [...] For all of these reasons, preventing food from getting to the landfill is far preferred over managing the methane it produces once there, especially given the federal goal of cutting the food waste stream in half by 2030.