A study published in PLOS ONE shows that while most Americans are aware that food waste is a problem, are concerned about it, and say they work to reduce their own waste, nearly three-quarters believe that they waste less food than the national average. The findings, from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, are significant given that 31–40% of the American food supply goes to waste, primarily in homes, stores, and restaurants.
“Americans perceive themselves as wasting very little food, but in reality, we are wasting substantial quantities,” said study author Roni Neff, director of the Food System Sustainability & Public Health Program at CLF and an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Dept. of Environmental Health Sciences. “It happens throughout the food chain, including both a lot of waste by consumers, and a lot on our behalf, when businesses think we won’t buy imperfect food. The root causes are complex.”
This first nationally representative consumer survey focused on wasted food sheds some light on factors affecting consumers’ waste. The survey, administered to 1,010 American consumers in April 2014, covered awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to wasted food.
Despite the large environmental impacts related to wasted food, most survey respondents listed environmental concerns last when ranking reasons to reduce food waste, with just 10% calling them “very important.” Instead, respondents said that saving money and setting a positive example for children were the top motivators for wanting to throw out less food.
When listing reasons why they toss food out before eating it, consumers gave the top reasons as food safety concerns and a desire to eat only the freshest food. Of note, 41% of those who composted were not concerned about how much food they wasted.
In 2010, wasted food cost American consumers $161.6 billion, and also placed a huge drain on the environment when approximately 30% of the fertilizer, 35% of the fresh water, and 31% of the cropland in the United States was used to grow food that was eventually wasted.
