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How did I not know there was a Discard Studies blog before now? A recent post features a fabulous array of infographics, or “theaters of proof.” Enjoy the show.

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Smart phones can help ensure food safety? And potentially let you see the cow your milk came from? Smile, Bessie! Or Cow 8261.

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Compost, trash or disposal? Easy decision, right? Not so much, as we learn in this helpful flow chart.

More than 50 UK grocery retailers have signed on to The Courtauld Commitment Phase 2, which sets many waste reduction goals. Food is one of them. Interestingly, the food waste goal focuses on homes: reduce home food and drink waste by 4% from 2009 to 2012.

You might be wondering: What does that have to do with grocers? That’s the best part–UK supermarkets have taken some responsibility for their role in prompting home food waste. As a result, many grocers have launched campaigns to preach the food waste reduction gospel to their customers.

And so…there has been a 3% reduction in home food waste, according to WRAP. They are on schedule to meet the 2012 goal. Even more impressive, though, are the numbers in comparing 2006/7 with 2010. In that time, household food waste dropped 13% and “avoidable” waste decreased by 18%.

That represents a saving of millions in cash and CO2 equivalent tonnes. Once more–Huzzah!

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Statistics New Zealand just released some interesting…statistics on food waste. For example, produce makes up more than half of (capital K) Kiwi food waste. And 27% of the country composts–wow!

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A  partnership between Publix supermarkets and Waste Management has yielded a new composting facility in Florida. The Organics Recycling Facility in Okeechobee will turn food waste from 42 Publix stores into a useful soil amendment.

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This piece in The Hindu begins with this hammer blow:

Wasting food is a crime against humanity.

The rest of the story works, too, detailing food waste in India.

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If you want to see some beautiful pictures of volunteers gleaning broccoli and cabbage, look no further.

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I’m pretty sure David Giles is my favorite dumpster-diving Australian-born PhD candidate in the U.S. He’s doing neat work examining how cultural assumptions about what is appetizing cause so much food waste and I can’t wait to see what his eventual book looks like.

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Finally…not to split hairs, but I don’t remember changing my last name. (And mid-article, too!)

That study, much to my delight, lists the amount of wasted food as a major obstacle to sustainability. The report notes the juxtaposition of “a significant amount of edible food waste that is sent to landfills” with 17% of citizens being food insecure.

To address that incongruity, the report recommends creating a Food Waste Task Force to push diversion. That term includes promoting food recovery and composting to recover food’s nutrients, among other things.

The report also pushes for school gardens to teach children where their food comes from. And then there’s the suggestion of building regional meat and seafood processing plants, both of which could create energy from the waste byproducts they create.

The report is definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than to see how beneficial a regional food system can be. And when that plan incorporates food waste diversion, it’s all the more heartening.

That’s the percentage of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions stemming from wasted food, according to CleanMetrics. It’s not a massive figure, but consider this: The average person’s food waste contributes almost 5 percent of the emissions of the typical car.

And 1.5 percent is a conservative estimate, as it doesn’t include restaurant waste. So add that environmental reason to reduce food waste to the existing list of ethical and economic ones.

But, wait–there’s more bad news! We individuals do not have as much agency as I’d hoped:

And by the time the food has reached you, the consumer, a lot of those emissions are already on their way to the atmosphere. Venkat says that nearly 80 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions come from producing and processing food.

Anyway, it’s quite helpful to have an estimate of food waste-related greenhouse gas emissions. If nothing else, it communicates that our waste impacts the environment.

Later this year, we’ll hit 7 million people. That’s why one of the 7 billion actions should be getting more efficient with our food. In other words, to waste less.

Just something to think about the next time you find an article about changing agriculture to feed the growing planet that doesn’t address waste. Sure, we’ll probably need to change ag practices, but let’s start by picking the low-hanging fruit–being more efficient!

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On a slightly more personal note, here’s a really well-conducted interview–no surprise there–from the Edible Communities people.

While I usually focus on oil, water is increasingly coming to the fore. To wit, this fascinating Dutch study that tallies foods’ water footprint. In addition to finding the water footprint of a city or nation, the study also calculates it for individual foods.

On page 54 of the study, we learn that chocolate, with 24,000 liters of water needed per kg, is among the worst offenders. We also get further evidence for eating chicken or pork instead of beef, and for fruits and vegetables instead of any meat.

Lest this idea prompts green fatigue (‘What other footprints do I need to worry about??’), here’s some free advice: Have a beer–only 75 litres per 250 ml glass! Or some water…

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Note: This Guardian piece prompted today’s post. And don’t forget to check out this UK report, which found that the water embedded in the food Britons throw away equals 6% of total UK water needs.

Further research in the area is urgent, especially considering that food security is a major concern in large parts of the developing world.

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This blog post on the FAO study is well done, but it overlooks the cost of unharvested food–a real source of waste in the developed world.

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Here’s an AP article wherein I display my grammatical prowess. Nice piece, otherwise…

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This Simple Bites piece not only has money-saving tips for reducing waste, it features what I’d call home economics porn.

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Of course they’re making mushrooms out of food waste in the East Bay. Still neat, though.

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On a personal note, I’m headed to Boulder, Colo. today, where I’ll be spending the summer with my fam. If you’re in that area, drop me a line/tweet/FB message/etc.

The event featured two other speakers, both EPA employees who work on food waste reduction. One of them brought up the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge, an encouraging idea that I haven’t written about here. Essentially, the program:

…encourages participants to reduce, donate, and recycle as much of their food waste as possible — saving money and helping protect the environment. Participants will conduct a food waste assessment, undertake three specific waste reduction activities, create a food waste recovery plan, and report progress using WasteWise ReTRAC.

Scrolling down on the site, you can find a bunch of useful tools to help facilitate the various steps. You’ll also find a list of participating schools, organizations and businesses.

And you may even notice that there are only 23 participants thus far. That seems like a miniscule small number to me. So…if you’re affiliated with a business, school or other organization and have been wondering how you can get that group to start reducing waste–here’s your chance!