How methane from food waste contributes to climate change
August 22, 2023 1:21 AM Subscribe
New York City is rolling out a composting plan through the Dept. of Sanitation, and I have high hopes for that.
What's encouraging is that people (in my neighborhood at least) seem to want to do something. In my community garden, one of the biggest questions we get from visitors is "would you ever accept stuff for your compost pile?" And yes, we do - we collect the leaf litter and dead plants from our own gardens and dry them up for the pile, and neighbors bring their compost scraps and in it all goes, and we get enough compost for about 30 plots that way.
....To be fair, though, this particular neighborhood is a bit on the bougie side and mileage may vary elsewhere. Although - one day a non-bougie dude, someone who looked like a resident from before the days things started gentrifying, came by with a question - he had this big sweet potato that was starting to sprout, and he was going to throw it out, but he was curious whether it would grow if he gave it to us. One of our leadership team offered to plant it in her own plot, and she spent about 5 minutes or so giving him a little mini Growing Sweet Potatoes 101 course; he couldn't plant it in his own apartment, so he still let her have it, but he was intrigued about how the whole process worked and surprised how much you could get from it. And for the past few weeks he still sometimes stops by to visit "his" potato plant and see how it's doing. And I'm kind of hoping that when she harvests things, she saves a few sweet potatoes for him.
Another thing that might help would be to not waste food in the first place - plan out meals so you use up what you've already got first before getting more stuff, knowing things you can do with slightly-wilted veggies, etc. And I think a big thing that would help with that is also talking it up as a way to help with one's own bottom line - since I started doing the meal-planning approach, my weekly grocery bills have dropped from $50 to about $20. I freeze some of the stuff I get from my CSA so it doesn't go to waste and I can use it later, I turn some slightly-tired stuff into soup stock, I do a lot of multi-veg stews and roasted-veg melanges that use up the last half a zucchini and the last couple pieces of tomato that aren't enough on their own for a thing, and it keeps me from needing to buy more and so each week I only have to stock up on a staple or two and that's it. This week all I needed was milk, eggs, and toilet paper. Spreading that approach (and teaching people who aren't as comfortable in a kitchen, because that's an important piece of that puzzle) could help too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:48 AM on August 22, 2023 [19 favorites]
What's encouraging is that people (in my neighborhood at least) seem to want to do something. In my community garden, one of the biggest questions we get from visitors is "would you ever accept stuff for your compost pile?" And yes, we do - we collect the leaf litter and dead plants from our own gardens and dry them up for the pile, and neighbors bring their compost scraps and in it all goes, and we get enough compost for about 30 plots that way.
....To be fair, though, this particular neighborhood is a bit on the bougie side and mileage may vary elsewhere. Although - one day a non-bougie dude, someone who looked like a resident from before the days things started gentrifying, came by with a question - he had this big sweet potato that was starting to sprout, and he was going to throw it out, but he was curious whether it would grow if he gave it to us. One of our leadership team offered to plant it in her own plot, and she spent about 5 minutes or so giving him a little mini Growing Sweet Potatoes 101 course; he couldn't plant it in his own apartment, so he still let her have it, but he was intrigued about how the whole process worked and surprised how much you could get from it. And for the past few weeks he still sometimes stops by to visit "his" potato plant and see how it's doing. And I'm kind of hoping that when she harvests things, she saves a few sweet potatoes for him.
Another thing that might help would be to not waste food in the first place - plan out meals so you use up what you've already got first before getting more stuff, knowing things you can do with slightly-wilted veggies, etc. And I think a big thing that would help with that is also talking it up as a way to help with one's own bottom line - since I started doing the meal-planning approach, my weekly grocery bills have dropped from $50 to about $20. I freeze some of the stuff I get from my CSA so it doesn't go to waste and I can use it later, I turn some slightly-tired stuff into soup stock, I do a lot of multi-veg stews and roasted-veg melanges that use up the last half a zucchini and the last couple pieces of tomato that aren't enough on their own for a thing, and it keeps me from needing to buy more and so each week I only have to stock up on a staple or two and that's it. This week all I needed was milk, eggs, and toilet paper. Spreading that approach (and teaching people who aren't as comfortable in a kitchen, because that's an important piece of that puzzle) could help too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:48 AM on August 22, 2023 [19 favorites]
Another thing that might help would be to not waste food in the first place
Even without wasting any food there's a surprising amount of volume that goes into the green bin.
We bought salmon fish heads for $3/kg and there's plenty of bones leftover after the meal. A whole chicken roasted, then the carcass boiled for soup, you still need to throw away an entire chicken carcass afterwards. We bought a durian that was $2/kg for some unknown reason and it was really good (usually $19/kg flown from Thailand), but then we had an entire durian husk to dispose of afterwards. Citrus was cheap at $0.19/kg and then we had a mountain of orange peel in our bin.
Some councils have decided they can use the green organics bin to replace regular rubbish since that's what actually rots, and the "general waste" landfill bin can be collected less often.
posted by xdvesper at 5:14 AM on August 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
Even without wasting any food there's a surprising amount of volume that goes into the green bin.
We bought salmon fish heads for $3/kg and there's plenty of bones leftover after the meal. A whole chicken roasted, then the carcass boiled for soup, you still need to throw away an entire chicken carcass afterwards. We bought a durian that was $2/kg for some unknown reason and it was really good (usually $19/kg flown from Thailand), but then we had an entire durian husk to dispose of afterwards. Citrus was cheap at $0.19/kg and then we had a mountain of orange peel in our bin.
Some councils have decided they can use the green organics bin to replace regular rubbish since that's what actually rots, and the "general waste" landfill bin can be collected less often.
posted by xdvesper at 5:14 AM on August 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
I used to be obsessed with food waste. I read everything I could about it, and changed my lifestyle to personally waste less (although my reading said that most waste came before the consumer). Then there was a backlash to things like Imperfect Foods, saying that there's not actually that much preventable food waste. The argument there is that producers are not going to throw away imperfect foods that could be processed into, say, apple cider, because to do so would be to throw away money.
Lately I've been thinking about that and laughing because capitalism creates waste all of the time. Picking out ugly apples to convert to apple cider takes different infrastructure which also costs money. I completely believe it's easier to throw away ugly apples than turn them into a different product. I've read Capital so I intellectually knew about the purposeful inefficiencies of capitalism, but the image of a landfill entirely of Funko Pops is what has made it stick to the forefront of my brain.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:28 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Lately I've been thinking about that and laughing because capitalism creates waste all of the time. Picking out ugly apples to convert to apple cider takes different infrastructure which also costs money. I completely believe it's easier to throw away ugly apples than turn them into a different product. I've read Capital so I intellectually knew about the purposeful inefficiencies of capitalism, but the image of a landfill entirely of Funko Pops is what has made it stick to the forefront of my brain.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:28 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you want to get into the scrapper lifestyle, which is what I call repurposing every possible food scrap in the kitchen, I highly recommend The Everlasting Meal Cookbook. It's not a cookbook in the typical sense. It lists an unimaginable amount of food scraps you might have like cilantro stems, a spoonful of jam, wilted lettuce, and gives uses for them.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:31 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:31 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
If composting isn't an option, in some places in-sink garbage disposals offer a way to get all that methane in one central place. The MWRA treatment plant at Deer Island uses anaerobic digesters to break waste down. The resulting methane is collected, burned and used to generate the electricity which powers the plant.
Composting is obviously a better option and easier on plumbing, but this information has made me feel not as bad about putting food waste down the drain.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:33 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Composting is obviously a better option and easier on plumbing, but this information has made me feel not as bad about putting food waste down the drain.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:33 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
This article is profoundly misleading by jumping from “household food waste is 46% of food waste.” To “methane causes 16% of global green house effect.” That’s a hell of a leap. Food waste is ~20% of methane emissions. Household food waste is ~1.5% of GHGs. Significant, but a lot less than the article implies. These sorts of misleading, blame-the-consumer articles carry water for big ag and the oil industry who are the major contributors here.
posted by Headfullofair at 6:32 AM on August 22, 2023 [34 favorites]
posted by Headfullofair at 6:32 AM on August 22, 2023 [34 favorites]
> How methane from food waste contributes to climate change
I call bullshit on clickbait title.
Methane from food waste does not contribute to climate change. Methane from food waste is just being part of the carbon cycle, and if we hadn't been burning fossil fuels for the last 200 years there would be no climate change attributable to it, even if the amount wasted is the same in the counterfactual as IRL.
Every greenhouse gas molecule that's released is not "contributing to climate change," because some of them would have been there anyway. Just as growing more trees is not "carbon sequestration" (because putting carbon into plant tissue doesn't take it out of the carbon cycle), burning wood or farting is not contributing to climate change.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:39 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
I call bullshit on clickbait title.
Methane from food waste does not contribute to climate change. Methane from food waste is just being part of the carbon cycle, and if we hadn't been burning fossil fuels for the last 200 years there would be no climate change attributable to it, even if the amount wasted is the same in the counterfactual as IRL.
Every greenhouse gas molecule that's released is not "contributing to climate change," because some of them would have been there anyway. Just as growing more trees is not "carbon sequestration" (because putting carbon into plant tissue doesn't take it out of the carbon cycle), burning wood or farting is not contributing to climate change.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:39 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
Aardvark Cheeselog, our landfills are not equivalent to natural degradation. They are anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gasses.
posted by Headfullofair at 6:42 AM on August 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by Headfullofair at 6:42 AM on August 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
Atmospheric methane is increasing at a pretty high rate and it is significant. Here's a graph.
I don't really know what to say to someone (who I'm near-certain has a higher global warming impact than me) who seems to — in this post and the last — be extremely angry about the fact that we need to embrace a wide portfolio climate change mitigations, but it is offputting.
One thing about reducing food waste is that of course a lot of atmospheric methane comes from food inputs, especially cattle, but also (and mea culpa, I eat at least 20kg a year) rice, so that's an important factor.
posted by ambrosen at 6:50 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't really know what to say to someone (who I'm near-certain has a higher global warming impact than me) who seems to — in this post and the last — be extremely angry about the fact that we need to embrace a wide portfolio climate change mitigations, but it is offputting.
One thing about reducing food waste is that of course a lot of atmospheric methane comes from food inputs, especially cattle, but also (and mea culpa, I eat at least 20kg a year) rice, so that's an important factor.
posted by ambrosen at 6:50 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
drawdown.org continuously updates their rankings of climate solutions, but reducing food waste has always been one of the top items.
posted by Foosnark at 6:56 AM on August 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 6:56 AM on August 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
California has adopted an ambitious program to provide organic waste collection services to all residents and businesses since January 2022. It is my understanding that about 70% of California's communities are now diverting residential organic waste to either anaerobic digestion, biomass energy, composting, or mulching. This program has gone well where I live, however, this isn't true everywhere, amongst other problems rural counties are having difficulty complying (see LHC report).
posted by RichardP at 6:57 AM on August 22, 2023
posted by RichardP at 6:57 AM on August 22, 2023
Atmospheric methane is increasing at a pretty high rate and it is significant.
Looks like that increase is from tropical wetlands. Which isn't good news:
We could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age
Looks like that increase is from tropical wetlands. Which isn't good news:
We could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age
Ice age terminations typically occur in three phases, which are recorded in ice cores going back 800,000 years. The initial phase is characterized by a gradual rise in methane and CO2, leading to global warming over a few thousand years. This is followed by a sharp increase in temperatures fueled by a burst of methane, leveling off in a third phase lasting several thousand years.posted by MrVisible at 7:02 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
"Within the termination, which takes thousands of years, there's this abrupt phase, which only takes a few decades," Nisbet said. "During that abrupt phase, the methane soars up, and it's probably driven by tropical wetlands."
> extremely angry about the fact that we need to embrace a wide portfolio climate change mitigations, but it is offputting.
Not guilty.
In the rock carbonation thread, I raised the question about whether it's really carbon sequestration, and got feedback to the effect that yes, it really is a method that potentially removes carbon from the carbon cycle for millions of years. But even while raising doubts about whether it was really carbon sequestration, I also said it sounded worthwhile, if only as a band-aid.
Also, yes I can walk back, slightly, the thing about wood-burning and farts as not really adding to the carbon burden, for reasons like somebody else mentioned, about carbon sinks in tundras getting turned to greenhouse gasses as the permafrost melts. Perturb the carbon cycle enough, and carbon that's not fossil carbon can come out of reservoirs to have an effect.
But the carbon that's in your food is not carbon that was in a coal seam or petroleum deposit or permafrost that's rotting or a peat bog that's drying out and burning. It's carbon that was part of the equilibrium that preceded the industrial revolution.
Also too, none of this is argument in favor of food waste.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on August 22, 2023
Not guilty.
In the rock carbonation thread, I raised the question about whether it's really carbon sequestration, and got feedback to the effect that yes, it really is a method that potentially removes carbon from the carbon cycle for millions of years. But even while raising doubts about whether it was really carbon sequestration, I also said it sounded worthwhile, if only as a band-aid.
Also, yes I can walk back, slightly, the thing about wood-burning and farts as not really adding to the carbon burden, for reasons like somebody else mentioned, about carbon sinks in tundras getting turned to greenhouse gasses as the permafrost melts. Perturb the carbon cycle enough, and carbon that's not fossil carbon can come out of reservoirs to have an effect.
But the carbon that's in your food is not carbon that was in a coal seam or petroleum deposit or permafrost that's rotting or a peat bog that's drying out and burning. It's carbon that was part of the equilibrium that preceded the industrial revolution.
Also too, none of this is argument in favor of food waste.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on August 22, 2023
Methane from food waste is just being part of the carbon cycle
This is untrue. Yes, green waste that naturally decomposes on the surface of the earth and turns back into carbon dioxide is just part of the carbon cycle.
What we are doing is burying food waste in landfills where anaerobic conditions convert it to methane.
We're growing food, which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then converting a significant portion of it into methane, which is 28x more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide it came from.
posted by xdvesper at 7:14 AM on August 22, 2023 [19 favorites]
This is untrue. Yes, green waste that naturally decomposes on the surface of the earth and turns back into carbon dioxide is just part of the carbon cycle.
What we are doing is burying food waste in landfills where anaerobic conditions convert it to methane.
We're growing food, which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then converting a significant portion of it into methane, which is 28x more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide it came from.
posted by xdvesper at 7:14 AM on August 22, 2023 [19 favorites]
I partially agree with Aardvark Cheeselog in that I think any article about anything we should do to mitigate climate change that doesn't frame it as "First, foremost and above all, we need to stop taking fossil fuels out of the ground. In addition to doing that, here are some further mitigation strategies..." is highly suspect.
I'll note that growing trees for wood does sequester carbon if the wood is used to build things that are made to last a long time.
I'm kind of surprised to hear that domestic food waste isn't being more widely diverted to biomass and digesters already. I don't generally think of the UK as having its act together all that well, but my non-organic rubbish is only collected once every three weeks because all food waste is expected to go to a separate weekly collection.
And I definitely agree with the point made earlier that lots of domestic food waste is not wasted food, it's peels and carcasses and other non-edible bits. The important thing is not having household consumers try to never have any food spoil and get thrown out, it's getting domestic food waste going somewhere better than landfill.
posted by Rhedyn at 7:20 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'll note that growing trees for wood does sequester carbon if the wood is used to build things that are made to last a long time.
I'm kind of surprised to hear that domestic food waste isn't being more widely diverted to biomass and digesters already. I don't generally think of the UK as having its act together all that well, but my non-organic rubbish is only collected once every three weeks because all food waste is expected to go to a separate weekly collection.
And I definitely agree with the point made earlier that lots of domestic food waste is not wasted food, it's peels and carcasses and other non-edible bits. The important thing is not having household consumers try to never have any food spoil and get thrown out, it's getting domestic food waste going somewhere better than landfill.
posted by Rhedyn at 7:20 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
I don't always like scroll-y animation stuff but the illustrations accompanying the articles were both cute and helpful with understanding.
I hate wasting food, I really do. It bugs my frugal sensibilities as much as my climate impact ones. But you guys, I'm just so tired of balancing so many things to just get food on the table. It has to be healthy, and affordable, and not create too much waste, but have enough taste and variety so I and my partner are willing to eat it (and not tempted to just punt and order delivery), and have enough protein even though I don't eat or cook meat, and work with my/our schedule and anticipated time and energy to cook, and and and... I do plan out meals for the week and we eat leftovers for lunch a lot, but there's still an embarrassing amount of waste.
We don't have municipal composting here, and there are just too many rats and too little space in my tiny city backyard to compost myself. But I know there is a paid service that I have been thinking about signing up for. This might be the nudge to do it.
posted by misskaz at 7:42 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
I hate wasting food, I really do. It bugs my frugal sensibilities as much as my climate impact ones. But you guys, I'm just so tired of balancing so many things to just get food on the table. It has to be healthy, and affordable, and not create too much waste, but have enough taste and variety so I and my partner are willing to eat it (and not tempted to just punt and order delivery), and have enough protein even though I don't eat or cook meat, and work with my/our schedule and anticipated time and energy to cook, and and and... I do plan out meals for the week and we eat leftovers for lunch a lot, but there's still an embarrassing amount of waste.
We don't have municipal composting here, and there are just too many rats and too little space in my tiny city backyard to compost myself. But I know there is a paid service that I have been thinking about signing up for. This might be the nudge to do it.
posted by misskaz at 7:42 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
@RichardP Hopefully they put up the upcoming report soon; I got an "access denied" page when I tried to read it.
I've definitely seen grumblings about the food waste mandate in CA, but my area has also been doing it for the past 15 years so I kind of don't get it. It's almost a no brainer. Rinds, eggshells, peels, fatty meat trimmings, bones, vegetable and fruit ends get put in the green bin. We cook a lot in my household, so we generate a lot of organics waste from simply just prepping the ingredients. As others have said, most of the waste is actually not spoiled food, it's just all the inedible stuff.
Having the option to compost also prevents odors from building up in the trash. An unintended effect is that I also use fewer plastic bags. I use one trash bag a week max, and I no longer have to sequester the stinky food waste in another small plastic bag before I deposit it in the kitchen garbage bin, or take out a half-used 13gal bag because it smelled too nasty. Plastic shopping bags are a scarcity now in my household because we just use reusable shopping and produce bags.
When I was briefly living in an area without municipal composting (or third party services) it was painful. When I moved back to CA, I was relieved to not only have the ability to compost from home, but also at work, restaurants and public spaces because organic bins were an option at most of these places.
posted by extramundane at 8:38 AM on August 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
I've definitely seen grumblings about the food waste mandate in CA, but my area has also been doing it for the past 15 years so I kind of don't get it. It's almost a no brainer. Rinds, eggshells, peels, fatty meat trimmings, bones, vegetable and fruit ends get put in the green bin. We cook a lot in my household, so we generate a lot of organics waste from simply just prepping the ingredients. As others have said, most of the waste is actually not spoiled food, it's just all the inedible stuff.
Having the option to compost also prevents odors from building up in the trash. An unintended effect is that I also use fewer plastic bags. I use one trash bag a week max, and I no longer have to sequester the stinky food waste in another small plastic bag before I deposit it in the kitchen garbage bin, or take out a half-used 13gal bag because it smelled too nasty. Plastic shopping bags are a scarcity now in my household because we just use reusable shopping and produce bags.
When I was briefly living in an area without municipal composting (or third party services) it was painful. When I moved back to CA, I was relieved to not only have the ability to compost from home, but also at work, restaurants and public spaces because organic bins were an option at most of these places.
posted by extramundane at 8:38 AM on August 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
Can't landfill methane be used for power generation? Methane is far worse (25x worse!) for the atmosphere than the CO2 produced from burning it. So: use that hot fart energy to power lights, utilities etc. while food waste is still going into landfills, then eventually when all uneaten food is disposed of via compost or digestor or whatever, the landfill methane train can end. Or just burn it! Either way it is better than just letting it seep out.
Meanwhile it looks like there's a community garden a number of blocks away where I can deposit compost, which is cool, but not nearly as effective as a city-wide compost collection program.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:43 AM on August 22, 2023
Meanwhile it looks like there's a community garden a number of blocks away where I can deposit compost, which is cool, but not nearly as effective as a city-wide compost collection program.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:43 AM on August 22, 2023
Yes, our local facility uses the green waste to generate compressed natural gas (CNG) to power all of their collection vehicles. I'm actually getting a tour of their facilities today as part of their community educational program!
posted by extramundane at 8:47 AM on August 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by extramundane at 8:47 AM on August 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
Re: nasty smells, it looks like meat bits are not compostable, not even in California.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:54 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:54 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
extramundane, the last link in my comment above is a link to the released LHC report.
posted by RichardP at 8:55 AM on August 22, 2023
posted by RichardP at 8:55 AM on August 22, 2023
My food (and sewage) waste both goes into the natural gas network and will accept meat, so it's definitely possible.
Sorry, it looks like they'll only publish the diagram as a jpeg, but I think it pretty much shows everything.
posted by ambrosen at 8:57 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sorry, it looks like they'll only publish the diagram as a jpeg, but I think it pretty much shows everything.
posted by ambrosen at 8:57 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, here in Seattle we have the yard waste bin, and you can put meat bits in there, as well as greasy pizza boxes. We've had that for a decade at least. It's pretty great.
One big yard waste bin, one big and one smaller recycling bin, both which generally fill up on the two week recycling schedule, and then one very small garbage bin that almost never is even close to full.
Pretty sure they do mass composting of the yard waste bins.
posted by Windopaene at 8:59 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
One big yard waste bin, one big and one smaller recycling bin, both which generally fill up on the two week recycling schedule, and then one very small garbage bin that almost never is even close to full.
Pretty sure they do mass composting of the yard waste bins.
posted by Windopaene at 8:59 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Facebook has been trying to get me to buy this home composter that I can supposedly put all my food waste into and turn into compost. I'm not sure the electricity used to run the thing isn't counterproductive and of course the company just blithely says it's fine without providing any data. Are these sorts of machines a good idea in general or any guidelines about what is good and what isn't?
posted by joannemerriam at 9:22 AM on August 22, 2023
posted by joannemerriam at 9:22 AM on August 22, 2023
@grumpybear69 We can definitely put meat bits and bones in the green bin in my area. Other municipalities may limit it if they primarily create compost as opposed to CNG. The link you provided is actually for home composting. In CA, raw meat from commercial facilities cannot be composted since they're subject to regulations from the CA Dept of Food and Agriculture.
@RichardP Thanks!
posted by extramundane at 9:23 AM on August 22, 2023 [6 favorites]
@RichardP Thanks!
posted by extramundane at 9:23 AM on August 22, 2023 [6 favorites]
This article is one of those "if you just compost / stop flushing / wear a hairshirt you can save the earth!" pieces. By all means compost. It will help. But individual action alone isn't going to save us from global warming and even collective compost programs aren't going to make a big dent.
Methane is an important target! It's an enormously powerful greenhouse gas and since it dissipates so quickly, changes in production have big immediate effects. But there are bigger sources of methane that are easier to reduce.
This article says "Methane produced by food decomposing in landfills makes up 1.6% of all human-made Greenhouse Gas emissions" but that's a little confusing since it confounds all gas emissions. Sources of methane emissions has alternate data. Agriculture is 24%, energy is 22%, and all waste is 11%. Food waste is about a quarter of all waste, so let's say 4% of all methane emissions in the world are food waste. Another source for data on food waste is this 2021 EPA report.
Meanwhile, oil & gas producers are 22% of methane and are just venting it into the air. There are some regulations around that but not enough. We're starting to be able to map methane emissions from space though, which is bringing some pressure to bear. And much of this methane is cheap and easy to abate.
Mostly, write your government representatives. Vote. We need policy changes on industrial sources. We need collective action.
posted by Nelson at 9:29 AM on August 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
Methane is an important target! It's an enormously powerful greenhouse gas and since it dissipates so quickly, changes in production have big immediate effects. But there are bigger sources of methane that are easier to reduce.
This article says "Methane produced by food decomposing in landfills makes up 1.6% of all human-made Greenhouse Gas emissions" but that's a little confusing since it confounds all gas emissions. Sources of methane emissions has alternate data. Agriculture is 24%, energy is 22%, and all waste is 11%. Food waste is about a quarter of all waste, so let's say 4% of all methane emissions in the world are food waste. Another source for data on food waste is this 2021 EPA report.
Meanwhile, oil & gas producers are 22% of methane and are just venting it into the air. There are some regulations around that but not enough. We're starting to be able to map methane emissions from space though, which is bringing some pressure to bear. And much of this methane is cheap and easy to abate.
We estimate that around 70% of methane emissions from fossil fuel operations could be reduced with existing technology. In the oil and gas sector, emissions can be reduced by over 75% by implementing well-known measures such as leak detection and repair programmes and upgrading leaky equipment.It is nice to have individual action that feels like it's helping. And compost has other rewards! But if you really want to reduce your global warming contribution as an American, install solar panels. Stop driving so much. Stop flying. Don't throw out leftovers. If you're already doing all that, pat yourself on the back. Then go outside and aerate your compost pile.
Mostly, write your government representatives. Vote. We need policy changes on industrial sources. We need collective action.
posted by Nelson at 9:29 AM on August 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
Write your government representatives if you have them! As a resident of Washington, DC, where we have taxation without representation, I am glad to see more curbside composting taking off in addition to the farmer's market and community garden options.
posted by wicked_sassy at 9:46 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by wicked_sassy at 9:46 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Flying contributes 1.9% of greenhouse gas emissions (by CO2 equivalent), methane from household food waste contributes 1.6%.
These numbers are as easily available as simply writing this “oh, actually, is someone else’s fault” pablum.
posted by ambrosen at 9:47 AM on August 22, 2023
These numbers are as easily available as simply writing this “oh, actually, is someone else’s fault” pablum.
posted by ambrosen at 9:47 AM on August 22, 2023
If the numbers are easily available could you please link the source you're referencing?
This is the best I could do. It says the aviation sector is 1.9% of all greenhouse emissions (in CO2 equivalents). It says 1.9% is landfill. It doesn't talk about which fraction of that landfill is food waste; like I said, it seems like maybe 1/4. Note these are whole-sector numbers, not per-capita numbers.
I may be guilty of falling into the same fallacy of "we don't need to do X, we need to do Y". The reality is we need to do all of these things, at the same time. Just if we're talking about methane there are much bigger and easier to address sources. Composting is good but isn't going to make as big a dent as turning the screws a bit on oil producers to stop being so lazy with their leaks. The nice thing about greenhouse gasses is they're additive; both changes are helpful.
posted by Nelson at 9:52 AM on August 22, 2023
This is the best I could do. It says the aviation sector is 1.9% of all greenhouse emissions (in CO2 equivalents). It says 1.9% is landfill. It doesn't talk about which fraction of that landfill is food waste; like I said, it seems like maybe 1/4. Note these are whole-sector numbers, not per-capita numbers.
I may be guilty of falling into the same fallacy of "we don't need to do X, we need to do Y". The reality is we need to do all of these things, at the same time. Just if we're talking about methane there are much bigger and easier to address sources. Composting is good but isn't going to make as big a dent as turning the screws a bit on oil producers to stop being so lazy with their leaks. The nice thing about greenhouse gasses is they're additive; both changes are helpful.
posted by Nelson at 9:52 AM on August 22, 2023
Methane produced by food decomposing in landfills makes up 1.6% of all human-made Greenhouse Gas emissions. While that may not sound like much, it’s a large percentage for such a specific pollutant. When scientists look at hyper-specific categories, Karl says, anything over 1% is significant.
From the article. It's worth pointing out that only about 63% of food landfill is from household sources, so that puts it down to 1%.
But I think it definitely is worth greeting posts about climate change mitigation with an open mind, and engaging with the issue in the post, rather than assuming other issues are more important. Especially if it's about things that are in the direct control of households rather than commercial interests. A lot of climate change mitigation is in the direct control of households, and even more is in their indirect control.
posted by ambrosen at 10:45 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
From the article. It's worth pointing out that only about 63% of food landfill is from household sources, so that puts it down to 1%.
But I think it definitely is worth greeting posts about climate change mitigation with an open mind, and engaging with the issue in the post, rather than assuming other issues are more important. Especially if it's about things that are in the direct control of households rather than commercial interests. A lot of climate change mitigation is in the direct control of households, and even more is in their indirect control.
posted by ambrosen at 10:45 AM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, here in Seattle we have the yard waste bin, and you can put meat bits in there, as well as greasy pizza boxes. We've had that for a decade at least. It's pretty great.
I think one critical thing they did here was, when they introduced green bin collection, they added a big price hike to the landfill-bound garbage bins. We wound up switching to a garbage bin that's about 1/4 the size of the one we had before, which if nothing else helped normalize the kind of reduction in landfill waste that this switch achieved.
(Actually, we typically fill the garbage bin less than halfway, I'd say there's at least 10x as much in our green bin each week, although that does include yard waste.)
posted by bjrubble at 11:10 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think one critical thing they did here was, when they introduced green bin collection, they added a big price hike to the landfill-bound garbage bins. We wound up switching to a garbage bin that's about 1/4 the size of the one we had before, which if nothing else helped normalize the kind of reduction in landfill waste that this switch achieved.
(Actually, we typically fill the garbage bin less than halfway, I'd say there's at least 10x as much in our green bin each week, although that does include yard waste.)
posted by bjrubble at 11:10 AM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
But the carbon that's in your food is not carbon that was in a coal seam or petroleum deposit or permafrost that's rotting or a peat bog that's drying out and burning. It's carbon that was part of the equilibrium that preceded the industrial revolution.
I'm not sure I fully agree, I think our modern usage of fertilizers throws the equilibrium argument out of whack, we wouldn't be able to grow so much food without those. I don't know if the way we typically dispose of food waste is worst or not from a emission standpoint though.
In any case, I don't think it's about whether a CO2 emission was part of the system before us, we emit too much, and there's too much in the atmosphere already. Anything we can avoid to emit is good. Now that doesn't mean we must focus on food waste as enemy #1, but since composting also has other benefits, it seems like a good plan, lets do that while also trying to not drive as much and eat less meat.
Our town has a mandatory food composting program, it was a bit of an adaptation at 1st but we've got it figured out now, and I can go 2-3 weeks without pulling the garbage bin to the side of side the road if I want to. Since we also have issues regarding where to dump the garbage, this is good IMHO. Now if they can invent a bin that is impervious to racoons, that would be great.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:22 AM on August 22, 2023
I'm not sure I fully agree, I think our modern usage of fertilizers throws the equilibrium argument out of whack, we wouldn't be able to grow so much food without those. I don't know if the way we typically dispose of food waste is worst or not from a emission standpoint though.
In any case, I don't think it's about whether a CO2 emission was part of the system before us, we emit too much, and there's too much in the atmosphere already. Anything we can avoid to emit is good. Now that doesn't mean we must focus on food waste as enemy #1, but since composting also has other benefits, it seems like a good plan, lets do that while also trying to not drive as much and eat less meat.
Our town has a mandatory food composting program, it was a bit of an adaptation at 1st but we've got it figured out now, and I can go 2-3 weeks without pulling the garbage bin to the side of side the road if I want to. Since we also have issues regarding where to dump the garbage, this is good IMHO. Now if they can invent a bin that is impervious to racoons, that would be great.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:22 AM on August 22, 2023
OK. I am relatively old and have learned many different things over my life that have turned out to be wrong, so please forgive me... I thought I learned at one point that having organic material in the landfill helped the non-organic material break down faster? If this is not so, what about food put in the garbage disposal, what happens to it?
posted by diane47 at 2:59 PM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by diane47 at 2:59 PM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Facebook has been trying to get me to buy this home composter that I can supposedly put all my food waste into and turn into compost. I'm not sure the electricity used to run the thing isn't counterproductive and of course the company just blithely says it's fine without providing any data. Are these sorts of machines a good idea in general or any guidelines about what is good and what isn't?
I'm pretty sure it's a waste of money if you have any other option at all. "Stop landfilling your vegetable scraps and make nutritious delicious lifegiving topsoil for Mother Earth!" (It's not dirt, it's ground up cooked garbage, damn!) But I was desperate to believe, having seen ads for it every single day, so I chomped down on the hook and threw them their multiple hundreds of dollars and they sent it to me. On the one hand, it did effectively seal away the rotting refuse and prevent it from stinking up the kitchen and providing a 24/7 fruitfly singles bar. And it looks like a prop from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Very sleek.
On the vastly larger other hand, it took up about an acre of counterspace; took forever to run its little cycle to reduce bulky, water-rich plant material to dried-out shredded plant material; and creeped me out severely because... Seriously? I'm going to run a countertop appliance for twelve hours straight to heat and grind my garbage simply because I'm too lazy to drag a bowlful of banana peels thirty paces across the street to the community garden compost pile? After a few cycles, I was too mortified to continue to own a Lomi. So I gave it to my boyfriend and he put it in the workplace white elephant party.
I really really really hate putting biodegradable stuff in the landfill, so if I were in an apartment building and had no other option, I probably would have kept it. But now the white elephant giftee can enjoy it while I, still too lazy to schlep stuff across the street, just throw my garbage on the ground and let the black soldier flies do their thing.
posted by Don Pepino at 5:52 PM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sure it's a waste of money if you have any other option at all. "Stop landfilling your vegetable scraps and make nutritious delicious lifegiving topsoil for Mother Earth!" (It's not dirt, it's ground up cooked garbage, damn!) But I was desperate to believe, having seen ads for it every single day, so I chomped down on the hook and threw them their multiple hundreds of dollars and they sent it to me. On the one hand, it did effectively seal away the rotting refuse and prevent it from stinking up the kitchen and providing a 24/7 fruitfly singles bar. And it looks like a prop from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Very sleek.
On the vastly larger other hand, it took up about an acre of counterspace; took forever to run its little cycle to reduce bulky, water-rich plant material to dried-out shredded plant material; and creeped me out severely because... Seriously? I'm going to run a countertop appliance for twelve hours straight to heat and grind my garbage simply because I'm too lazy to drag a bowlful of banana peels thirty paces across the street to the community garden compost pile? After a few cycles, I was too mortified to continue to own a Lomi. So I gave it to my boyfriend and he put it in the workplace white elephant party.
I really really really hate putting biodegradable stuff in the landfill, so if I were in an apartment building and had no other option, I probably would have kept it. But now the white elephant giftee can enjoy it while I, still too lazy to schlep stuff across the street, just throw my garbage on the ground and let the black soldier flies do their thing.
posted by Don Pepino at 5:52 PM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
I tried a local version of misfit produce box and ended up with so many beets that it was counterproductive. Instead of throwing out a lot of beets every month I try to be more thoughtful about what I buy and use up what I already have.
But I did start composting using a Bokashi and have been very happy with this option for apartment based composting. I drop mine off at my municipal composting site so I can't put meat scraps or bones in it, but it does effectively break that down. In the past I have dumped it in my friends compost pile and they said it made it very "hot", which I think is a positive.
The biggest benefits are that my trash bin is lighter, less stinky, and is much less appealing to fruit flies. And I get to feel like I am doing something that may, in some miniscule way, help slow climate change.
posted by arachnidette at 6:05 PM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
But I did start composting using a Bokashi and have been very happy with this option for apartment based composting. I drop mine off at my municipal composting site so I can't put meat scraps or bones in it, but it does effectively break that down. In the past I have dumped it in my friends compost pile and they said it made it very "hot", which I think is a positive.
The biggest benefits are that my trash bin is lighter, less stinky, and is much less appealing to fruit flies. And I get to feel like I am doing something that may, in some miniscule way, help slow climate change.
posted by arachnidette at 6:05 PM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
New York City is rolling out a composting plan through the Dept. of Sanitation, and I have high hopes for that.
I had municipal composting in Brooklyn in 1994. I left in 1997. Hearing that it’s just now being rolled out across all the boroughs, 30 years later, makes me feel…something other than hopeful.
posted by vitabellosi at 2:10 AM on August 23, 2023
I had municipal composting in Brooklyn in 1994. I left in 1997. Hearing that it’s just now being rolled out across all the boroughs, 30 years later, makes me feel…something other than hopeful.
posted by vitabellosi at 2:10 AM on August 23, 2023
I had municipal composting in Brooklyn in 1994. I left in 1997. Hearing that it’s just now being rolled out across all the boroughs, 30 years later....
They tried another city-wide rollout a couple years before the pandemic, but abandoned it - I think there wasn't much citizen outreach, because we were all just issued these smaller bins for our house and a larger bin went to each building, but there wasn't much in the way of flyers distributed to everyone about what the hell to do with this stuff. I'm assuming that maybe the false starts are a function of the city trying to work out the kinks.
I'm also wondering if maybe the big issues we had with rats last year and the year before have also revived this; treating organic food waste differently than other garbage will probably also have an impact there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:30 AM on August 23, 2023
They tried another city-wide rollout a couple years before the pandemic, but abandoned it - I think there wasn't much citizen outreach, because we were all just issued these smaller bins for our house and a larger bin went to each building, but there wasn't much in the way of flyers distributed to everyone about what the hell to do with this stuff. I'm assuming that maybe the false starts are a function of the city trying to work out the kinks.
I'm also wondering if maybe the big issues we had with rats last year and the year before have also revived this; treating organic food waste differently than other garbage will probably also have an impact there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:30 AM on August 23, 2023
If four out of five occupants of the hot-tub voluntarily abstain from sh&ting in the hot-tub, whether from genuine belief or virtue-signalling from a new celebrity shame campaign, it doesn't stop that fifth bloke from ruining the hot-tub with Cholera. All atmospheric pollution crises are crises about effectively enforcing restrictions on others.
Composting makes useful fertilizer, for your own or a neighbors garden, do it and plant the trees that will outlive us.
Reduce the methane you can, and prepare to make the bottle-neck less tight so as many peoples and species and ecosystems can survive for the future.
posted by AnchoriteOfPalgrave at 12:59 AM on August 24, 2023
Composting makes useful fertilizer, for your own or a neighbors garden, do it and plant the trees that will outlive us.
Reduce the methane you can, and prepare to make the bottle-neck less tight so as many peoples and species and ecosystems can survive for the future.
posted by AnchoriteOfPalgrave at 12:59 AM on August 24, 2023
All atmospheric pollution crises are crises about effectively enforcing restrictions on others.
Several Civ games have ended that way... so you won't voluntarily stop polluting? I'll send my army to conquer your nation to enforce my green agenda, even if I have to nuke you into oblivion, this is after all for the good of everyone on the planet =P
On a more hopeful note, the world came together to ban CFCs with remarkable success.
posted by xdvesper at 2:42 AM on August 24, 2023
Several Civ games have ended that way... so you won't voluntarily stop polluting? I'll send my army to conquer your nation to enforce my green agenda, even if I have to nuke you into oblivion, this is after all for the good of everyone on the planet =P
On a more hopeful note, the world came together to ban CFCs with remarkable success.
posted by xdvesper at 2:42 AM on August 24, 2023
Facebook has been trying to get me to buy this home composter that I can supposedly put all my food waste into and turn into compost. I'm not sure the electricity used to run the thing isn't counterproductive
Odds are a few people will dismiss the source because he had opinions during GamerGate but he's got a few words about Lomi.
Drying waste, making it a powder and then spreading in a thin layer on the ground/feeding to a worm bin doesn't need a lomi but does need effort and space.
"First, foremost and above all, we need to stop taking fossil fuels out of the ground. In addition to doing that, here are some further mitigation strategies..." is highly suspect.
Not at all suspect. I've wasted hours of time presenting energy numbers and sources showing how the 800HP+ farm tractors are gonna keep being oil powered but those posts get deleted so instead the people who make such claims about the 'no removal of fossil fuels' should show their work. VS just saying "say no to oil".
Then there is the energy needs of the US Military. So long as that energy vampire is politically needed fossil fuel extraction will continue. WWII shows how the population feels about 'no fuel for the civilians but fuel for the military'.
And while the Web is international the posting pattern on The Blue is not. So mention of taking PRE CONSUMER wastes and processing them into Black Soldier Fly Larvae isn't considered due, in part, to the post 9/11 food bio-safety laws that now require such insect feed to be government approved for sale. Note the pre-consumer. Because humans as a whole won't follow guidelines thus the feedstock for live critters is a problem.
Want something else that can make compost? Well there are worms but the worm business has a history of fraud such that at one time the IRS had rules about how one can't have writeoffs for the worm business. The 1970's scam was big enough for it to be a punchline in a Hewey, Dewey and Lewy comic book. The 2000's had B&B. I expect in 2030's a new scam will happen. And worms arn't considered good chicken feed due to disease vectors.
Terracycle would be a business example. And note their "worm gin" purchase as an example of a good idea but VERY hard to implement - see Korea and the FL penitentiary project outcomes.
Can't landfill methane be used for power generation?
Methane, sure. But those landfill gases have more than methane, they have Sulfur compounds and those will take and make an internal combustion engine junk in a short period of time. And now the EPA has opinions about Nitrogen compounds and I'm guessing you'd get some of those. So you are left with steam generation or if vendors were able to make them Sterling cycle engines. The old Magic Soil website talked about composting realities and the 200+ compounds from anaerobic decomposition.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:19 AM on August 24, 2023
Odds are a few people will dismiss the source because he had opinions during GamerGate but he's got a few words about Lomi.
Drying waste, making it a powder and then spreading in a thin layer on the ground/feeding to a worm bin doesn't need a lomi but does need effort and space.
"First, foremost and above all, we need to stop taking fossil fuels out of the ground. In addition to doing that, here are some further mitigation strategies..." is highly suspect.
Not at all suspect. I've wasted hours of time presenting energy numbers and sources showing how the 800HP+ farm tractors are gonna keep being oil powered but those posts get deleted so instead the people who make such claims about the 'no removal of fossil fuels' should show their work. VS just saying "say no to oil".
Then there is the energy needs of the US Military. So long as that energy vampire is politically needed fossil fuel extraction will continue. WWII shows how the population feels about 'no fuel for the civilians but fuel for the military'.
And while the Web is international the posting pattern on The Blue is not. So mention of taking PRE CONSUMER wastes and processing them into Black Soldier Fly Larvae isn't considered due, in part, to the post 9/11 food bio-safety laws that now require such insect feed to be government approved for sale. Note the pre-consumer. Because humans as a whole won't follow guidelines thus the feedstock for live critters is a problem.
Want something else that can make compost? Well there are worms but the worm business has a history of fraud such that at one time the IRS had rules about how one can't have writeoffs for the worm business. The 1970's scam was big enough for it to be a punchline in a Hewey, Dewey and Lewy comic book. The 2000's had B&B. I expect in 2030's a new scam will happen. And worms arn't considered good chicken feed due to disease vectors.
Terracycle would be a business example. And note their "worm gin" purchase as an example of a good idea but VERY hard to implement - see Korea and the FL penitentiary project outcomes.
Can't landfill methane be used for power generation?
Methane, sure. But those landfill gases have more than methane, they have Sulfur compounds and those will take and make an internal combustion engine junk in a short period of time. And now the EPA has opinions about Nitrogen compounds and I'm guessing you'd get some of those. So you are left with steam generation or if vendors were able to make them Sterling cycle engines. The old Magic Soil website talked about composting realities and the 200+ compounds from anaerobic decomposition.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:19 AM on August 24, 2023
On a more hopeful note, the world came together to ban CFCs with remarkable success.
My understanding is that we had or could develop replacement solutions affording us to get pretty much the same thing but without CFCs, so small sacrifice. And we got the countries producing CFCs to stop exporting them, so even countries who didn't care had to care. So not easy, but easier than getting right of CO2 emissions.
We don't have replacement solutions that don't involve some compromises on energy usages, transportation, etc.... so right there it's a tough sell. Also oil, gas & coal are also available in a lot of places and we have no way to agree or even enforce an usage/export ban. You think Russia & Saudia Arabia are ever gonna stop? The only way it stops is if we manage to eliminate the demand.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:47 AM on August 24, 2023
My understanding is that we had or could develop replacement solutions affording us to get pretty much the same thing but without CFCs, so small sacrifice. And we got the countries producing CFCs to stop exporting them, so even countries who didn't care had to care. So not easy, but easier than getting right of CO2 emissions.
We don't have replacement solutions that don't involve some compromises on energy usages, transportation, etc.... so right there it's a tough sell. Also oil, gas & coal are also available in a lot of places and we have no way to agree or even enforce an usage/export ban. You think Russia & Saudia Arabia are ever gonna stop? The only way it stops is if we manage to eliminate the demand.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:47 AM on August 24, 2023
We don't have replacement solutions that don't involve some compromises
To put it plainly, everything is a compromise. Dumping toxic waste into the river is a lot cheaper, but the compromise we make today is to process the waste properly. Asbestos was cheaper. Leaded fuel was cheaper. The old and more toxic anti termite poisons were cheaper.
Euro 7 emissions are being enacted around the world mainly as a selfish measure to improve air quality in the cities, but as a side effect lead to large reductions in CO2 emissions and also drive the transition to EVs as it simply makes it too expensive to comply with those requirements with an ICE engine.
I don't have to "compromise" on electricity generation from coal and gas plants when I can buy my own solar panels at a price point that generates electricity for me at competitive rate against the power I buy at retail from the grid.
posted by xdvesper at 1:00 AM on August 25, 2023
To put it plainly, everything is a compromise. Dumping toxic waste into the river is a lot cheaper, but the compromise we make today is to process the waste properly. Asbestos was cheaper. Leaded fuel was cheaper. The old and more toxic anti termite poisons were cheaper.
Euro 7 emissions are being enacted around the world mainly as a selfish measure to improve air quality in the cities, but as a side effect lead to large reductions in CO2 emissions and also drive the transition to EVs as it simply makes it too expensive to comply with those requirements with an ICE engine.
I don't have to "compromise" on electricity generation from coal and gas plants when I can buy my own solar panels at a price point that generates electricity for me at competitive rate against the power I buy at retail from the grid.
posted by xdvesper at 1:00 AM on August 25, 2023
a selfish measure to improve air quality in the cities
a selfish measure to save children's lives?
posted by ambrosen at 3:28 AM on August 25, 2023
a selfish measure to save children's lives?
posted by ambrosen at 3:28 AM on August 25, 2023
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The local council processes this into mulch and fertilizer. It gets shredded and hot-composted at over 60°C for 5 weeks to kill seeds and eliminate weedkiller from it, then tested for impurities before being sold. The heat is generated by the decomposition itself and in fact the pile has to be actively aerated and cooled to prevent it getting too hot which would kill the bacteria and halt the process.
posted by xdvesper at 1:40 AM on August 22, 2023 [10 favorites]