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Food Waste
Food Waste
- Basic Information
- Generators
- Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy
- Success Stories
- Where You Live
- Frequent Questions
- Tools and Resources
Greenversations – EPA’s Blog
Take the Food Recovery Challenge
The EPA Food Recovery Initiative is challenging business, industry, and institutions to reduce, donate, and recycle as much of their food waste as possible. Learn more ...
Food waste is any food substance, raw or cooked, which is discarded, or intended or required to be discarded. Food wastes are the organic residues generated by the handling, storage, sale, preparation, cooking, and serving of foods.
This section of the Organic Materials website provides information about economically, socially and environmentally beneficial food waste management. Topics include:
- Basic Information – Learn why food waste disposal is a problem and what’s currently being done about it.
- Generators – Learn about food waste management options for large-scale generators and for households.
- Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy – Review EPA’s food waste diversion hierarchy and learn how to recover and reduce surplus food and food waste.
- Source Reduction – Reduce the amount of food waste being generated;
- Feed People – Donate excess food to food banks, soup kitchens and shelters;
- Feed Animals – Provide food scraps to farmers;
- Industrial Uses – Provide fats for rendering or fuel and food discards for animal feed production;
- Composting – Recycle food scraps into a nutrient rich soil amendment
- Food Recovery Challenge – Challenge participants to reduce as much of their food waste as possible — saving money, helping communities, and protecting the environment. .
- Success Stories – Learn how some organizations are recovering food scraps and submit your own project to EPA.
- Where You Live – Learn about EPA regional and state food waste programs
- Frequent Questions – Find answers to frequently asked questions about food scraps.
- Tools and Resources – View publications and links to EPA-sponsored websites and other federal and nongovernmental organization websites that provide information on food scraps management issues.
