Campus Food Waste Management: Developing a Comprehensive Food Waste Management System for Green Campus

Food waste is one of the most challenging components in the waste stream. Americans refuse 25% of all the food they prepare each year, leading to 33 million tons of wasted food piling up annually in landfills according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 2010). Food waste significantly impacts environmental, economic, and community health. The accumulation of discarded food in landfills contributes to air and water pollution, and the burning of food refuses also affects air quality.

In a broader sense, food waste includes not only food waste generated by leftover, surplus, contaminated, spoiled, or expired food, but also containers and dishware in supply and service. During the development of a future food waste management system applicable to the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA, the food waste in the latter definition will be considered. The present study starts with a brief background of food waste followed by presenting the current status of the food waste management system at CMU. Among a number of efforts that are currently made by other institutions, a list of successful examples that can be directly applied to CMU are selected and presented. In addition to the list, a couple of suggestions will be added by considering the CMU environments.