Eye on Environment: Food waste has hidden costs

“Spoiler Alert!” was the title of a section in a recent issue of Consumer Reports.

Rather than giving away the endings of exciting stories, the section featured articles, charts, graphics and lists centered on the theme of preventing food from becoming waste. Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture data, one list of shocking facts maintained that American consumers discard 43 percent of the food brought into homes, costing the average family of four $1,500 per year.

Not only a waste of money, uneaten food also represents a waste of the arable land used to grow food, water used to irrigate crops and petroleum-based energy used for cultivation and transport. Also, as pointed out in the magazine, wasted food is “the biggest component of landfills, and as it decomposes, it produces the greenhouse gas methane.”

“Biggest component” can also be used to describe food waste in local landfills if we count all the sorting categories separately. According to statewide averages based on sorting at several facilities — one of which was in Oxnard — food waste is about 14 percent of what Ventura County residents throw into our landfills.

Until recently in Ventura County, much of the methane gas escaping from food and other waste rotting in local landfills was captured in pipes and converted into energy. But starting Oct. 1, this consolation prize for waste was eliminated due to high costs of implementation and the low current value of energy. Now a flare destroys nearly all the harmful gases the operators can capture, but without energy recovery.

According to the article, not only do people at home waste 43 percent of their food, but also “consumer-facing businesses” — supermarkets, restaurants, institutional food services and government food providers — waste 40 percent. Farms waste 16 percent.

Improving storage techniques is one way to cut this waste from homes. Consumer Reports recommends three brands of plastic storage containers to slightly extend produce life, but the most effective method they suggest is separating fruit from vegetables in refrigerator drawers and using a high humidity setting for vegetables and a low setting for fruit.

Home gardening is a way to cut the food waste from the consumer-facing businesses. Productive home gardeners often give away some of their bountiful crops just at the moment of ripening, giving presents that are eagerly eaten by work colleagues, neighbors and friends. What good home gardeners can’t give away, they usually compost on site or disc back into the soil. Some with especially large harvests contact Food Forward or FOOD Share, which glean for the hungry.

From 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 29, master gardener Lee Rosenboom will teach how to plant a winter vegetable garden so you can put healthy vegetables on your table far into the chillier months. Also, farm adviser Dr. Ben Faber will share essential information about citrus, including a discussion of the Asian citrus psyllid and appropriate and effective watering for citrus trees in a drought.  

Classes at the Hansen Agricultural Research and Extension Center near Santa Paula require a registration fee of $20, which includes the two presentations, a continental breakfast and snacks. They also require advance registration either through an internal website available to master gardeners or through a public website at http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=18028. Wear closed-toe shoes and comfortable, layered clothing.

Topics will include understanding the differences between cool-season and warm-season vegetables, managing a vegetable garden and the advantages of a raised bed for gardening in the winter. Winter gardening uses less in resources (water, effort and time) than summer gardening, but most summer veggies cannot be grown in the winter because of the cooler weather and day length. 

When you grow your own food, you will often have more than you can use, but keep your eye on the environment and don’t let it become waste. 

David Goldstein is an environmental resource analyst for the county of Ventura. Jessica Craven Goldstein is a master gardener. Representatives of government or nonprofit agencies who want to submit articles on environmental topics for this column should contact David Goldstein at 658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.