Food waste can happen at any point in the process of trying to get food from the producer to the consumer.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), the total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 was 292.4 million tons or 4.9 pounds per person per day. Of the MSW generated, approximately 69 million tons were recycled and 25 million tons were composted. The United States EPA estimates that around 24% of municipal solid waste in the United States derives from food. Food waste creates methane, a greenhouse gas, when it breaks down anaerobically(without oxygen) in landfills.

The Journal of Rural and Community Development published an article on waste in Alaska. In the lower 48, around 64% of MSW is deposited in landfills. In Alaska, an average of 90% of MSW ends up in landfills according to studies done in 2018. It is generally accepted that the rate of disposal in Alaska is higher than the national average of 4lbs per person per day. The United States as a whole recycles 28.5% of its MSW, while the state of Alaska recycles just 7.5%. Various studies in the Journal of Community and Rural Development show that Alaska faces challenges with recycling and enacting recycling laws and efforts. Because of this rural and urban communities generally depend on local voluntary recycling efforts.

Compost FBX wants to help divert food waste from the landfill and slowly progress to a more sustainable future with a minimum food waste. The Environmental Protection Agency released information on exactly how this would be possible.

Compost FBX - Where does it fit?

The EPA released a Food Recovery Hierarchy. This hierarchy demonstrates the life cycle of food waste. With the Food Recovery Hierarchy it helps people like us prioritize actions organizations can take to prevent and divert wasted food. Each tier of the Food Recovery Hierarchy focuses on different management strategies for your wasted food. Only buy food you can realistically consume before it will go bad or get creative with food preservation recipes.

The hierarchy starts with source reduction. Food becomes wasted when the source produces an overwhelming amounts of food. Alaska is unique when it comes to MSW. Getting food to Alaska is an immense task and getting rid of it is even harder. Much of the food waste ends up buried in landfills. What do we do with the food waste? We move on to the next step of feeding hungry people. Food banks and soup kitchens collect food that does not have the capacity to be sold. This is the part of the hierarchy were you look through your cupboards and consider donating to your local food bank or soup kitchen.

After we sift through the food that is edible, we look for anything that isn’t fit for human consumption should be fed to animals. Food waste unfit for humans and animals should head straight to the compost pile to begin its transformation into food for the soil. This is where Compost FBX comes in. Our goal is to divert the rest of the food waste into compost that can be recycled in our community gardens. There are community gardens and compost projects like us all over Alaska and the United States.

We have been through each layer of the hierarchy. What do we do next? The food that cannot be salvaged at all is headed to the landfill.