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Put Holiday Leftovers to Good Use
Fall is the season of bounty—from cooking large quantities of stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and apple pies to company parties with lavish buffets—creating lots of leftovers and surplus food. That’s why the holiday season is an ideal time for your local supermarkets, restaurants, and other food service providers to put surplus food to good use. Almost half the food in the US, approximately 100 billion pounds a year, goes to waste, making leftover food the second largest component of the US waste stream by weight. With food waste losses accounting for about $100 billion per year—$30 to 40 billion occurring within the commercial or retail sector—food service providers simply can’t afford to sidestep environmentally sound surplus food management.
EPA's new brochure, Putting Surplus Food to Good Use (PDF) (2 pp, 1.1MB, about PDF), explains how food service providers such as restaurants, supermarkets, and institutional cafeterias can manage surplus food effectively through reduction and recovery. The brochure reminds us that before we throw out food, we must remember that surpluses can be beneficially used by people, animals, industrial organizations, and composting facilities.
Managing surplus food responsibly does not fall on food service providers alone—individual consumers also must assume responsibility for reducing food waste. Avoid excess waste in the first place by buying only what will be eaten. Start a backyard compost bin with your food preparation scraps and fall leaves. Before you throw away leftover cranberry sauce or potatoes that you didn’t cook, think of places that may be able to use those items. Some charities accept food donations—check your local listings.
Follow our food waste recovery hierarchy for managing food waste:
- Reduce the volume of food waste you generate—buy and prepare only what you will sell or use.
- Give to those in need by donating your extra food to food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters or other charities.
- Feed animals by sending food scraps to accepting farms.
- Donate waste oils and food scraps to industrial companies who convert them into new products, such as cosmetics, pet food, fuel, and energy.
- Compost food scraps and yard trimmings.
- Discard any remaining scraps as a last resort.
The brochure may be downloaded for free from our Organic Materials Web site. Surplus food management and reduction efforts exemplify the type of innovation encouraged by our Resource Conservation Challenge that promotes organic recycling.
For More Information:
- Food Scraps
- Organic Materials
- Putting Surplus Food to Good Use (PDF) (2 pp, 1.1MB, about PDF)
- Donating Surplus Food to the Needy (PDF) (4 pp, 120K, about PDF)
- Don't Throw Away That Food: Strategies for Record-Setting Waste Reduction
- Managing Food Scraps as Animal Feed (PDF) (4 pp, 106K, about PDF)
- Waste Not/Want Not: A Guide for Feeding the Hungry and Reducing Solid Waste Through Food Recovery (59 pp, 1.5MB)
- Research Conservation Challenge National Priority Area: Municipal Solid Waste Recycling