Food Waste Research Paper

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National CornGrowersAssociation
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WaterEnvironmentResearchFoundation
Cheyenne Connors
Professor McGee
English 132-017
8 May 2015
Minimizing Food Waste When Surrounded by Constant Abundance
Once something is thrown away, the majority of people stop thinking about it. Yet, food
is a prevalent waste item in the United States. When people become full or do not fully enjoy
something, they start again with a whole new plate of food. Few people stop and think about the
resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food that is thrown away casually. Food
waste is an all-encompassing issue facing our community and the world. A substantial amount of
resources and money are put into producing our food and, yet, massive amounts of food are
thrown away, without a second thought. Solutions can be implemented on a university scale.
Stephen F. Austin State University needs to lead the community in showing responsible
consumption of our food and resources. Stewardship is a key to establishing a cleaner, kinder
future in Nacogdoches. More can be done with our food waste than people know with plans such
as simple aerobic composting for the university to utilize and sell or implementing a farsighted
plan to power the school with an anaerobic composter. The campus should be taking more steps
to reduce how much waste is produced. There also should be a strict system which tracks waste
production and publishes yearly results. There are solutions and there can be actions. It is both
possible and worth the effort.
Food waste is any material that is discarded before or after consumption. According to
Dr. Sheryll Jerez, an associate professor of environmental science at SFA, in 2012 there was “34
million tons” of food waste put into landfills in the United States. Such massive amounts of food

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waste have destructive effects on the surrounding environment. It is important to recognize the
complexity of these processes because it can affect the ground and underground processes as
well as atmospheric activities. Scientists have found that liquids from waste food will seep out of
the landfills and infiltrate the soil. If not monitored, liquid in large amounts could seep down into
groundwater supplies. Food waste also may contaminate the soil surrounding the landfill which
will have an adverse effect on soil processes. Such deleterious effects harm delicate soil deposits
which are a key non-renewable resource. Bacteria in the landfill are simultaneously acting on the
food in the oxygen-less environment. Bacterial processes create acid which corrodes the material
of the landfill over time and release methane into the atmosphere (Jerez). The activity of food
waste is not limited to the inside of a landfill since it does not just biodegrade. Recognizing the
need to divert food from landfills is an imperative step towards finding long term solutions.
Understanding how resources are controlled is not only an extension of stewardship, but,
also a general part of life. Whether the general public realizes it or not, food waste does affect
each person. Consider a loaf of bread. An average loaf of bread has a carbon footprint of
approximately 1.244L CO2 (Espinoza 351). Imagine the amount of bread in a local grocery store.
There is an extensive carbon footprint involved in food production of the total bread in stores. To
put this in perspective, the amount of carbon dioxide an average person exhales is nearly 19L of
CO2 per hour (NYT n.pag). There is supplementary carbon dioxide being emitted by a week’s
supply of bread in the grocery store than a person exhales in an entire year. There are
greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing foods, shipping foods, cooking foods, and
disposing of foods. “Food wastage's carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tons of CO2
equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year,” (FAO n.pag). The whole process of
creating a loaf of bread takes a toll on the environment. This is all on the grounds that a

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consumer just “might be in the mood” for bread this week. There are other options that can
employ food products before and after the best-used-by date. It is unwarranted to be producing
this amount of greenhouse gas for the purpose of filling a landfill. From there, it is not
challenging to account for what is accreting on global scales as a result of food production and
waste. There is undoubtedly food waste accreting on the SFA campus.
The SFA campus food company, Aramark, provided food waste reports for the month of
March on campus. The graphical representation (below) of food waste accounts for the pounds
of waste over the number of days the vendors were open. The Student Center and East College
cafeterias were open for 19 days, the largest number of operating days on campus. These
locations produce thousands of pounds of pre-consumer waste. The smaller vendors on campus,
such as Chick-fil-A, were open only 17 days and serve during more restricted hours. These
locations, nevertheless, still produce hundreds of pounds of waste. Only some of the production
food waste goes to the Native Plant Center for composting. The remaining food waste might
actually be useful if it was not being packed, gathered, shipped, and then packed again to be put
into the local landfill. Although many useful solutions lie in the realm of reducing waste, there
are still other more efficient options in dealing with these mass quantities.

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Food waste audits and financial information should be available to the public, conducted
regularly, and with precision. Whether there are posters displaying the information or a monthly
report printed with The Pine Log, the students should be kept informed. Keeping the public
informed and aware of the amounts of food waste will promote the public to participate in
finding solutions. Just because the cafeteria is run by a private company does not mean its
operations are not falling under state university funding. The State of Texas requires the
university to publish expenditures and incomes, but nowhere could it be found how much money
is paid to this private company, Aramark, that has become an integral part of the campus. It does
not make sense that a public state university is required to publish its fiscal actions, but a private
company working inside the university is exempt from doing so. Do you know what your very
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148 113
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Production Waste
(lb)
Service Waste (lb)
Storage Waste (lb)
Total Waste (lb)
Total Food Waste at SFASU
for March 2015
AmountofFoodWaste
Locationon SFASU
Average Duration:
16 days

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expensive meal plan is paying for? If the university wants to charge students hundreds of dollars
to eat in the state owned cafeteria, there should be open records on how the company running the
cafeteria conducts itself and the real costs of its operations. Not only that, but waste reports need
to be a part of their official documentation. The information found for the pre-consumer waste
was based off of screen shots from a private waste tracking program. Aramark managers had to
provide the information with their personal logins. The public is entitled to know what is being
spent and what is being wasted by Aramark.
In the spring semester of 2015, as an effort to quantify officially the post-consumer
waste, a small group of students conducted a waste audit in the Student Center cafeteria. To
conduct the waste audit, the students set up a waste collection area just in front of the usual plate
drop zone. The students then proceeded to take peoples’ plates and separate food, paper, plastic,
and other materials, such as wooden corn dog sticks, into separate bins. When a bin became full,
the students weighed, recorded and emptied the bin for further use. From the operating hours
between four to eight o’clock, 718 people had eaten dinner and produced a total of 188.1lbs of
waste. Based on the amount, we can imagine the waste produced over a day or an entire year.
165.2lbs of the waste produced by consumers was food alone. In addition, there is the added
food waste produced by the kitchen during production that had to be quantified. This brings the
total food waste for the evening to 322.2lbs. If every meal at the Student Center was to produce
this much food waste, there would be more than an entire full sized, SUV’s worth of waste going
into a landfill every week (Hakim 1). Only small portions of this waste are diverted to the Native
Plant Center. This is a gross over production of waste. SFA can cut down on waste production
and find innovative solutions to deal with what is deemed unavoidable. People have even
recognized this issue on other college campuses.

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There are universities all over the country who have recognized this problem and taken
responsibility for installing solutions. Texas State University in San Marcos is a prime example
of a student run composting program. They have set themselves apart by researching how to
compost with invasive species and mixed consumer waste. The school composts not only
consumer waste from the cafeterias, but also invasive aquatic plants that are harming the
environment (Sullivan 66). The University of California in Davis has an exceedingly ambitious
program. Their anaerobic composting network is expected to reduce greenhouse emissions by
“13,500 tons” annually and will produce “5.6 million kWh per year” of renewable electricity
(UCDavis n.pag ). The biodigester has allowed the school to be less dependent on paying outside
companies to produce energy with coal or natural gas. There always will be garbage produced,
yet, it is gratuitous that the waste itself be wasted when there are so many options on how to
make use of it again. Making changes may seem to be less beneficial than the changing process
is worth. That, however, is not the case for either of these universities.
Some may think that the costs of making a change will outweigh the future benefits. Yet,
WERF2 conducted a study showing the costs and benefits of various food waste treatment
options. “Out of all the five food waste management alternatives examined, the practice of using
landfills to dispose of food waste had the highest carbon footprint and was the most
costly”(WERF 11). As of today, this practice has the highest cost to fiscal budgets and on the
environment. The costs of producing and filling landfills will continue to grow with rapidly
increasing populations and urban environments. There are other options that are more sustainable
from a financial point of view for communities.
For instance, composting is a common and widely installed method for dealing with
unwanted organic material. Dr. Jared Barnes, an Assistant Professor of Horticulture, defines

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composting as “the biological reduction of recognizable organic waste into unrecognizable
organic compounds like humus” (Barnes). In other words, composting is the breakdown of
organic matter like food, into a soil-like material that boosts soil and plant health. The chemical
process requires the proper balance of materials, for instance, leafy, green materials “which
contain large amounts of nitrogen”, and other materials such as “branches, wood chips,” which
“contain large amounts of carbon” (EPA n.pag). The best materials for composting gardens or
agricultural fields are fruits, vegetables, leaves, and grass. This type of material composts best
without the presence of animal products. As explained by Dr. Barnes, the animal products
contain fats that break down using different types of bacteria. As long as it is organic material,
though, there is a way to incorporate it in compost. Producing compost helps reduce “the need
for supplemental water, fertilizers, and pesticides” (EPA n.pag). By reusing trash food products,
the university can save money on grounds management and increase the health of campus soil.
Composting is a simple project that is beneficial for the environment and can divert food waste
from landfills.
Anaerobic composting is a means to divert food waste in a composting system producing
methane gas; the gas, which in turn, is able to power buildings. Anaerobic composting is the
“biological degradation of sludge or solid waste under anaerobic conditions,” which yields
“methane as a source of energy” (Environmental Encyclopedia 1). Anaerobic composting is
different from aerobic composting because it requires the compost container to be sealed and
void of oxygen. To be precise, one type of bacteria that is present under these conditions can
produce acid to break down the food, while another type of bacteria digests the acid producing
bacteria to produce methane (The Urban Farming Guys n.pag). This process does require
attention at first, but, once the balance is established, the digester can produce methane in place

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of coal or natural gas. This is exceedingly valuable in comparison to just allowing the food waste
to produce methane in landfills because methane is going to happen somewhere. Although
methane is one of the main components of natural gas, by extracting it from food waste, the
campus would save money though effort would be needed to gather the material and fill the
digester with the available waste. This plan would increase job opportunities and, also, reduce
dependence on outside companies by providing the university with renewable energy. The
process will not be effortless to start up, but, in time, the benefits will outweigh the costs to the
environment, community, and university. There is a myriad of options on how SFA could
incorporate solutions into the campus and how it could be utilized.
Another option is to feed portions of SFA’s food waste to the swine in the Agriculture
department. Studies have shown that feeding pigs with food waste is not detrimental to their
growth. In a study conducted by the American Society of Animal Science, scientists compared
the growth and meat quality of pigs that were fed on a college campus food waste diet versus a
corn-soy bean diet. Evidence suggested that food waste was an “excellent nutritional quality as
indicated by nutrient analysis, digestibility, and protein availability and quality” (Westendorf 9).
Food waste fed to swine not only resulted in a high quality of meat, but, also provided a feasible
solution for post-consumer cafeteria waste. According to studies shown by the EPA and NCGA1
“about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas
livestock, poultry, and fish” (EPA n.pag). Rather than growing corn for feeding to livestock, it
could be feeding people. The monetary and environmental costs of producing corn or soy for
livestock feed are apparent, especially when tons of food waste is getting transported and buried
into landfills, when it could be feeding local swine. Using food waste, therefore, to feed
commercially produced animals is a sustainable option to manage food waste on a massive scale

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and eliminate baleful effects from food waste buried in landfills. Plus, this would be a great
opportunity for different groups and colleges to work together across campus.
Intra-college cooperation could bring awareness and show people that SFA works in
unison to solve problems facing the campus and community. For example, students of different
colleges will bring a variety of strengths and viewpoints into understanding and building a
solution. Environmental science and sustainability majors could work with people in engineering
and finance to understand what it would cost to build and install anaerobic composting on
campus. Meanwhile, they can work with people in marketing on how to spread awareness
through the student body and gather funds. Sociology students can conduct research to measure
acceptance rates and responses. Bringing people together to solve a mutual problem can be
invaluable in and of itself, on top of resolving an issue. It gives students real experience and time
to apply their knowledge with other classmates. It also gives students practice in dealing with
different industries and types of people, not to mention that the students can actually solve real-
world problems and earn experience!
There are plenty of options available to the SFA campus and the community when
thinking of dealing with food waste. Small scale group composting projects can get the
university started. In the end, hundreds of pounds of food waste could be diverted from landfills
by using the food waste to feed swine or power the grid through anaerobic digestion. In reality,
there are even more solutions. By gathering people of different skills and backgrounds, new and
creative innovations could put SFA in the forefront of the fight against food waste. Giving
students and staff a real cause, along with the encouragement and support of the university, could
change the way the SFA community thinks about food. Change does not have to live up to its

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bad name of strife and difficulty. Stephan F. Austin State University can actually look forward to
change.

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Works Cited
"Anaerobic digestion." Environmental Encyclopedia. Gale, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Barnes, Jared. Personal Interview. 7 Apr. 2015.
"Biodigester Turns Campus Waste into Campus Energy : UC Davis News & Information." UC
Davis News & Information. University of California, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.
"Composting Guerrilla Style." The Urban Farming Guys. The Urban Farming Guys, 1 Dec.
2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
"Composting for Facilities." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 27 June 2014. Web. 22
Apr. 2015.
Espinoza-Orias, Namy, Heinz Stichnothe, and Adisa Azapagic. "The Carbon Footprint of
Bread." Springer Science & Business Media 16.4 (2011): 351-65. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Hakim, Danny. "Average U.S. Car Is Tipping Scales at 4,000 Pounds." The New York Times.
The New York Times, 5 May 2004. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Juarez, Sheryll. Personal Interview. 14 Apr. 2015.
"Major Crops Grown in the United States." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 11 Apr.
2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
The Urban Farming Guys. "Methane Biodigester How To." YouTube. YouTube, 19 Mar. 2011.
Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
"Texas State Home to Award-winning Composting Program." Texas State Home to Award-
winning Composting Program. The University Star, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

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Food Waste: Global Solutions Exemplified in Nacogdoches,
Stephen F. Austin University
Parry, David L. Sustainable Food Waste Evaluation. Alexandria, VA: WERF, 2012. eBook
Collection EBSCOhost). Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
The Water Environment Research Foundation is a nonprofit, independent
scientific research organization who works with the federal government in protecting
water and environmental resources. The foundation conducted research comparing the
applicability of two main responses to dealing with large scale food waste in the United
States.
Although this study was nationwide, it does not technically apply to large scale
businesses and universities. It did, however, prove to be useful in generating ideas that
the university could modify to fit for the Nacogdoches community. The study
investigated five different options in dealing with food waste, two of which directly
connected with this essay. WERF examined the carbon footprint of each option, and
postulated the costs and benefits. When examining if methane can be produced by waste
water facilities and anaerobic digestion and composting, they made steps in finding a
food waste solution. The benefit of using the waste water system as a means to gather
food waste for anaerobic digestion is that there was already infrastructure in place to do
so. Not only that, but, they also thought of a way to collect compost by curb-side, this
reduces food waste in residential areas.
The study was clearly made to reach the masses for the language is easy is
understand and the results are clear. This source was a large supporter to my thesis that
large scale changes can be made. This source inspired me to think about how the systems

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in place around the country can be updated without being rebuilt. Yet, an important
question was left on whether or not consumers would be supportive. The entire study
proved to be invaluable.
"Anaerobic digestion." Environmental Encyclopedia. Gale, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Anaerobic digestion is the process of utilizing naturally occurring decomposition
from bacteria to harvest2 methane gas. The methane gas can then be used to power homes
or businesses. The gas is produced in all living mammals and occurs in landfills. The
anaerobic composting set up is designed to capture the gas before it can go into the
atmosphere and convert it to carbon dioxide through combustion. The article was written
for people with a working knowledge of chemistry, but could be understood without it. It
fits into the other research in that it discusses the basic systematics. The article was
extremely helpful in understanding the anaerobic composting process. The article
supported the thesis in giving a clear and unbiased description of anaerobic composting.
Stuart, Tristam. “The Global Food Waste Scandal.” London. TED. May. 2012. Web. 30 March.
2015.
An extremely informative TED talk discussing real figures regarding global food
waste. This data was extremely difficult for Tristam to find and his work will not go
unappreciated. Tristam begins his talk by using anecdotes from adolescence to get in
touch with his audience. After he explains his reasoning for caring about this issue, he
introduces hard data and graphs that would have been difficult to understand without his
explanation.
Sullivan, Dan. "College Students Initiate Food Waste Diversion." BioCycle. Sept. 2010: 65-67.

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Web.
Sullivan conducted a series of visits to universities all over the United States to
see efforts being made to deal with food waste. Of the seven universities visited they all
had student run composting programs. One university, University of California, even had
a biogas project in the making. Many of the universities had off campus composting sites,
but a couple had creative composting bins all around the campuses. By locating the
composting bins on campus, more of the student body becomes involved, and less work
is done to gather and transport materials.
In comparison to the other sources in this bibliography, this one is very unique.
Most of the information found was regarding large scale areas and cities rather than
specific universities. The tone of the article was also very positive, while it was
encouraging to see that, it is not necessarily all that is going on in those projects. The
article was most likely reaching out to other students and university officials who may be
compelled to take action against food waste.
The article was very helpful in supporting my thesis. To have a compiled list of
universities making these changes and information on how it is going was extremely
useful. This article shaped my argument by showing my audience that there are people
and universities who feel strongly about reducing food waste. Without including this
article, most of the sources would have been on the fence about implementing solutions.
United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Food wastage: Key
facts and figures. Rome. Web. 31 March. 2015.
This source was a compliment of facts on global food waste. The UN exemplified
data on the impact of food waste and the reverse impact of solutions pertaining to it.

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Households generate food waste just as big businesses and countries do; therefore, steps
need to be taken to account for food waste on each level. Otherwise, numbers will
increase and solutions will become more difficult to implement in the future.
The article fits into my research by providing key data that supports my claims.
There is no indication of bias or strong language. The facts, being so plainly stated, are
one sided. There is no blurred point of view from the author, however, the data had
relatively little context. This was seen as a step to finding more information around the
facts. Even though there is relatively little information, the information this source has is
rare and challenging to find.
In supporting the thesis, the concentrated information filled in important areas of
the background the global food waste. Compared to the other sources, this source was
much more cut and dry, not leaning one way or the other. It is organized in a list and is
easy to read and understand. Not only saving time, but this style of organization means
anyone who has access to the article will be able to translate it. The FAO of the UN’s
discussion on food waste was helpful, but could have gone more in depth.
Westendorf, M. L., Z. C. Dong, and P. A. Schoknecht. "Recycled Cafeteria Food Waste as a
Feed for Swine: Nutrient Content Digestibility, Growth, and Meat Quality." Journal of
Animal Science 76. (1998): 2976-983. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Experiments were conducted by the State University of New Jersey to test the
feasibility of using food waste to feed production pigs. They analyzed cost benefits,
growth rates, nutritive values, texture, and meat quality. This was done by looking at the
nutrients in the food people are throwing away, finding out if this is good feed option for
the pigs, test how well the pigs digest the material, and then assess the quality of the

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meat. 40 pigs were, at random, given either a soybean based feed or food waste feed. The
end result was that food waste is a good option for feeding commercial pigs, yet a
limitation is that it must be dried prior to feeding.
The article was arranged similar to other scientific studies, and the authors did not
mind using terminology that the general public wouldn’t understand. The abstract laid out
a clear path to how the experiment was conducted and did not give a detailed explanation
of results. Graphs and charts were very helpful in understanding of the results of the
experiment. Comparing the food waste diet to a corn and soybean based diet was a great
tool in understanding if food waste could be a feed option. Information coming from
outside the study was cited meticulously throughout the text. Also, the study was even
more applicable in that, they used food waste from a university cafeteria, which
corresponds to my claim.
The article was a great source of information regarding nutrition and growth of
pigs. It encouraged me to continue looking into using food waste to feed commercially
produced pigs. Although, it would have been a better find had they discussed the means
and prices of dehydrating food waste for swine consumption. The article as a whole
supports my thesis and helped shape my ideas of how to use food waste. This may be a
better option than composting, but more detailed financial research will have to go on to
support that.

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