Food: Material-Specific Data

In the Wasted Food Reports, EPA provides estimates of wasted food generation from the food and beverage manufacturing and processing, food retail, food service, and residential sectors, as well as estimates of how it is managed through several pathways, including:

• Animal feed.
• Bio-based materials/biochemical processing.
• Codigestion/anaerobic digestion.
• Composting/aerobic processes.
• Controlled combustion.
• Donation.
• Land application.
• Landfill.
• Sewer/wastewater treatment.

This webpage provides a brief summary of wasted food data. 

On this page:

• Overview
• Summary Table and Graph
• Wasted Food Reports

• Wasted Food Measurement Methodology Scoping Memo

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Overview

EPA estimates the generation and management of wasted food in the following sectors:

• Food and beverage manufacturing and processing.
• Residential, which is comprised of single and multi-family households.
• Food Retail, which includes supermarkets, supercenters, and food wholesalers.
• Food service, which includes restaurants, hotels, and sports venues as well as other institutions that provide food service including hospitals, nursing homes, military installations, office buildings, correctional facilities, colleges and universities, and K-12 schools.
• Food banks.

EPA estimates that in 2019, 66 million tons of wasted food was generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of this waste (about 60%) was sent to landfills. An additional 40 million tons of wasted food was generated in the food and beverage manufacturing and processing sectors. The biggest portion of this (42.6%) was managed by anaerobic digestion.

To estimate how each sector manages wasted food, EPA relied on various sector-specific studies, as well as facility-reported anaerobic digestion data and state-reported composting data.

The following diagram depicts the flow of wasted food generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors to the management pathways.

WASTED FOOD GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT FLOWS (2019)

The following table summarizes estimates of how much wasted food was managed in the food retail, food service, and residential sector by each pathway.

WASTED FOOD MANAGEMENT ESTIMATES (2019)

MANAGEMENT PATHWAY	QUANTITY MANAGED (TONS)	PERCENTAGE MANAGED
Donation1	5,135,293	7.76%
Animal Feed	1,516,771	2.29%
Bio-based Materials/Biochemical Processing	2,335,988	3.53%
Anaerobic Digestion	538,539	0.81%
Composting	3,304,764	4.99%
Land Application	141,371	0.21%
Controlled Combustion	9,646,263	14.57%
Landfill	39,621,902	59.84%
Sewer/Wastewater Treatment	3,975,352	6.00%
TOTAL	66,216,242	100.00%

^{1 These estimates exclude the small share of excess food (473,027 tons) that food banks cannot distribute and is routed to other management pathways.}

Please refer to the 2019 Wasted Food Report and the Wasted Food Measurement Methodology Scoping Memo (2020) (pdf)(1.5 MB) for further information on estimating the generation and management of food waste.

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Summary Table and Graph

The data below are from 1960 to 2019, relating to the total number of tons of food generated, recycled, composted, combusted with energy recovery, and landfilled.

1960-2019 Data on Food in Municipal Solid Waste by Weight (in thousands of U.S. tons)

Management Pathway	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005	2010	2015	2017	2018	2019
Generation	12,200	12,800	13,000	23,860	30,700	32,930	35,740	39,730	40,670	63,130	66,220
Recycling	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Composted	-	-	-	-	680	690	970	2,100	2,570	2,590	3,300
Other Food Management	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	17,710	13,640
Combustion with Energy Recovery	-	50	260	4,060	5,820	5,870	6,150	7,380	7,470	7,550	9,650
Landfilled	12,200	12,750	12,740	19,800	24,200	26,370	28,620	30,250	30,630	35,280	39,620

^{*Note that 2018 was the first year for which EPA used a new methodology, so the generation estimates increased due to the expanded scope of the new methodology.}

A dash in the table means that data is not available.

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Wasted Food Reports

These reports describe the measurement methodology used to calculate the 2018 and 2019 wasted food estimates and provide detailed estimates of generation and management by sector. The reports include estimates for the food and beverage manufacturing and processing, food retail, food service, and residential sectors. 

• 2018 Wasted Food Report (pdf)(2.3 MB).
• 2019 Wasted Food Report (pdf)(1.72 MB).

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Wasted Food Measurement Methodology Scoping Memo

In 2017, EPA set out to revise its food measurement methodology to more fully capture flows of excess food and food waste throughout the food system, and to provide more granular annual estimates of generation and management of excess food and food waste to the public. This Scoping Memo describes the measurement methodology EPA has used to date, as well as the enhanced methodology that EPA developed between 2017 and 2019. The enhanced methodology examined the following management pathways, which significantly expand the scope beyond EPA’s previous set of management pathways for food waste (i.e., composting, landfill, and combustion):

• Animal feed.
• Bio-based materials/biochemical processing.
• Codigestion/anaerobic digestion.
• Composting/aerobic processes.
• Controlled combustion.
• Donation.
• Land application.
• Landfill.
• Sewer/wastewater treatment.

This enhanced methodology was used to calculate sector-specific estimates of excess food and food waste generation, as well as estimates of how much excess food and food waste was sent to each management pathway, for the year 2016. This Scoping Memo provides detail on the methodologies and studies used, the resulting 2016 estimates, and describes how EPA plans to use the enhanced methodology in its estimates for the “Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures” report.

• Wasted Food Measurement Methodology Scoping Memo (2020) (pdf)(1.5 MB).