Student Studies Food Waste and Suggests Simple Solutions to Make Big Changes
Alma Galicia, 14, an eighth-grader at TRAILS Outdoor School in Ashland, knew that food waste was an issue at her school. She also knew it was a major source of the climate-polluting methane. But what she didn’t know was just how much food waste her fellow students were creating as a result of their lunches — or why. So she set out to find some answers. She also found some nifty solutions.
For her eighth-grade capstone project, Alma created a simple food audit. She placed buckets on a table in the cafeteria and asked students to put their food scraps into those buckets instead of into the garbage bins. The buckets were monitored by student volunteers that Alma recruited, who then guided students to put leftovers into buckets labeled “entree,” “fruits and vegetables,” etc. The volunteers also set aside any unopened food.
When Alma and her volunteers tallied up the contents of the buckets, they found that the small school of about 150 students and teachers wasted about 26 pounds of food each day. That averaged out to be just under a half pound of waste per student per day. Alma wasn’t surprised by the results: “I had seen so much waste in the trash can every day,” she said. “I wanted to put a number to that.”
Part of her quest to quantify the waste was Alma’s understanding that when food waste gets dumped into landfills, where it is deprived of oxygen, it creates methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas. In the United States. 40% of food is wasted annually, and the majority of that ends up in landfills. In addition to the pollution it creates, spoiled or unused food represents a substantial economic loss. The average family of four discards an estimated $1,500 worth of uneaten food annually. And that translates into additional waste of land, water resources, and energy used in food production, processing, and transportation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Alma’s experiment didn’t stop at just quantifying food waste, however. Her volunteers asked students why they hadn’t eaten all of their lunch. The answers? The most common response was that students were full. Alma learned that kindergarteners are given the same portions as eighth-graders. Students also reported they didn’t have time to eat all their food, and some said they didn’t like the taste.
Alma presented her findings to five classes at TRAILS and concluded her report with some suggestions to reduce food waste, including that the school consider:
Establishing a share basket where unopened food could be donated — items such as cartons of milk or whole fruit. Hungry students were encouraged to take what they needed from this basket. In the course of her 4-day experiment, the volunteer monitors diverted 13 pounds of food from the landfill.
Moving recess, which has been after lunch, to before lunch because research shows that it improves food consumption.
Extending the lunch period to allow more time for eating.
Alma also suggested that food be prepared in ways that are easier for younger students to eat. For example, she suggested that oranges be sliced into smaller portions — quarters instead of halves, so they can be consumed more easily by young children. She also advocated for good signage around the school, reminding students to take only what they need at the self-serve salad bar, and that they try to reduce waste.
The need to reduce food waste is urgent. In 2020, food waste in U.S. landfills was responsible for 55 million metric tons of methane emissions, measured as carbon dioxide equivalents, according to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. This represents 58% of the total methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills. Uneaten food is responsible for 14% of U.S. methane emissions, according to a 2014 reFED study.
Reducing methane quickly will have quick results: “The impact of reducing methane now can actually be felt in just a decade or so, and preventing food from becoming waste is one of the most effective actions we can take to drive that reduction immediately,” said Minnie Ringland, manager, climate and insights at ReFED.
Alma is well on her way to driving quick and meaningful reductions in methane. Alma’s mentor for the study, Magdalena Winter, who runs the nonprofit Ashland Community Composting service, remarked that Alma’s research had resulted in concrete changes. “Mentoring Alma was incredibly inspiring,” Winter said. “It reaffirmed the knowledge that change can indeed be created with hard work, vision, determination, and community support. Food waste is such low-hanging fruit with such a large methane output.”
Alma plans to present her findings to the Ashland School Board soon. She hopes the data will encourage school leaders to change portions. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me that kindergarteners get the same food as eighth-graders,” she said. Alma also hopes to encourage the school district to support a local service that picks up food scraps and composts them, turning the scraps into rich soil.
Alma hopes another TRAILS student will repeat her experiment next year to see whether any changes that are adopted make a difference, and she’s pledged her support to guide that project. She’s also looking forward to doing other environmentally-minded work next year as an incoming freshman at Ashland High School. “I’m super interested in these issues and I want to do what I can,” she said.