FoodOptions/Factsheet

Declining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads. Failure to act now through a wholesale reinvestment in agriculture—including research into improved technologies, infrastructure development, and training and education of agricultural scientists and trainers—could lead to a long-term crisis that makes the price spikes of 2008 seem a mere blip. ScienceDaily

Much of the progress in the collection of separated discarded food has been in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries to date. In the Netherlands, virtually all municipal governments provide source-separated collection of all residential organics. Both yard and discarded foods are generally collected on at least a biweekly basis.

The European experience has been motivated, in part, by the absence of garbage disposals in most residences and by the adoption of aggressive national environmental policies.

A national environmental policy adopted in the Netherlands in 1994 requires that all municipalities collect residential organics separately. Those materials are banned from landfills. The Netherlands has also adopted a goal of achieving 75 percent waste diversion from landfills and incinerators.

In residential programs that already have a weekly yard trimmings pickup by rolling carts, adding food can increase diversion without adding significantly to costs. The key to this is whether the current composting facility can accept discarded foods. Additional start-up costs may be incurred for kitchen pails and outreach. Additional costs may be incurred for adding cart service. These may be offset by savings in collection efficiencies and avoided disposal costs.

One of the major issues for instituting discarded food collection programs is the type of storage containers to be used, both in the kitchen and outside the house. Discarded food is generally stored in the kitchen in a temporary storage container. This may be a special container provided to residents by the recycling program, a plate, a used coffee can, or a used 1-gallon plastic ice cream container with a lid that residents provide themselves.