The polices and campaigns to save energy in the U.S., from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to pumping billions of dollars into corn ethanol production, one of the simplest and most underused ways to curb energy use might be in the advice our grandmothers have been giving us all along: Eat your leftovers.
Each day, American households on average throw away at least one and a half pounds of food that, depending on which numbers you look at, represent between a quarter and a half of all the food produced in the U.S. Worse yet, the amount of squandered food is said to increase during the holiday season, a reflection of the same overindulgence that spurs overeating this time of year and pushes losing weight or getting fit to the top of the New Year’s resolution list.
But with every half-full, expired milk carton or rotten apple that is wasted, so is the energy it took to produce them.
Food waste has been studied for the past two decades, but for the first time a new study by Cockrell School of Engineering Professor Michael Webber quantifies the amount of energy in the U.S. lost in food waste. The study was published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science and Technology journal earlier this year and shines a light on a policy option that's long been overlooked but is gaining attention as food shortages around the world have drawn awareness to the relationship between food and energy.
The study, co-authored by former research associate and University of Texas at Austin chemical engineering and Plan II alum Amanda Cuèllar, calculated that the U.S. could save roughly 2 percent of its total energy consumption in one year if it stopped wasting food.
The number might sound small, but it’s the energy equivalent to saving 350 million barrels of oil.
"That's about twice as much energy as Switzerland consumes in a year for all purposes, so we could power them up and then some," said Webber, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and the associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at The University of Texas at Austin. "The amount of energy embedded in the food we throw away is more than all the energy we get from the corn ethanol we produce in a year, so this is a big number and it's a big, underutilized policy option for us to consider."
Webber is not alone in his thinking. The study has caught the attention of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among others, who are teaming up with him with hopes of conducting an updated study on the ties between food and energy and how much of both are lost during production, distribution and preparation. Webber and the agencies are trying to secure funding for the research, with the intent of starting a broader program of study in 2011.
"As a nation, we're struggling with energy issues and reducing food waste is not the only answer to problem, but it might be one of the easiest to implement," Webber said.
HOW AMERICA THROWS AWAY A QUARTER OF ITS FOOD
Webber first became conscious of food waste while working as a waiter for six years during high school and college, where he got his undergraduate degrees in Plan II and aerospace engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.
Years later, just after earning his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in 2001, his interest was piqued again when he invented a laser-based sensor used to measure the ammonia emissions from cow manure, a precursor to the formation of air pollution.
