The volume of food waste generated in the United States has been growing since 2016. In 2019, ***** million tons of food waste were generated in the country. This is an increase of almost **** million tons compared to the food waste generated in 2016.

These Flow-By-Sector (FBS) datasets capture food waste flows between waste-generating sectors and waste management pathways. The sectors are generally North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2012 codes. The first dataset, method 1 (m1), attributes food waste generation and disposition data from the USEPA Wasted Food Report to sectors. The second method, method 2 (m2), attributes wasted food data from the National Commercial Non-Hazardous Waste (CNHW) FBS dataset to sectors. These food waste datasets were generated with FLOWSA v1.3.2 (https://github.com/USEPA/flowsa/tree/v1.3.2). M1 is generated with https://github.com/USEPA/flowsa/blob/v1.3.2/flowsa/methods/flowbysectormethods/Food_Waste_national_2018_m1.yaml and m2 is generated with https://github.com/USEPA/flowsa/blob/v1.3.2/flowsa/methods/flowbysectormethods/Food_Waste_national_2018_m2.yaml. The metadata text files included as a supporting document records the FLOWSA tool version and input dataset bibliographic details. The CNHW data were generated in FLOWSA v1.3.0, with the method file https://github.com/USEPA/flowsa/blob/v1.3.0/flowsa/methods/flowbysectormethods/CNHW_national_2018.yaml.

In 2019, the largest amount of food waste in the United States was generated within the industrial sector, which encompasses food manufacturing and processing. It generated approximately ***** million tons of food waste. The entire rest of the country generated an estimated ***** million tons, spread all other sectors.

This statistic represents the volume of wasted food in the United States in 2015, broken down by facility. In that year, American households generated approximately ** million metric tons of food waste. Food waste in the United States – additional information Farms, grocery stores, and restaurants are often blamed for creating vast amounts of food waste, where in reality, families and households generate the largest volume of wasted food, totaling some ** million metric tons in the United States in 2015, which equaled about *** billion U.S. dollars. A large proportion of food that goes to waste is from perishable items such as fruits and vegetables, which accounted for about ** percent of waste in 2015. Fruit and vegetables are some of the least expensive, yet, fastest to spoil and thus, often get discarded. On the other hand, seafood and meats are among the most expensive items and are two of the least discarded products. In one survey, almost half of the American respondents believed that grocery stores could help consumers reduce waste by offering certain food items in smaller quantities. Others believed that offering bulk food bins and incentives to encourage buying things when they are needed could also reduce the production of food waste. Annually, the U.S. sends about **** million tons of food to the landfill and another **** million tons remain unharvested from farms. A significant portion of the unharvested food is due to cosmetic imperfections, but is mostly left on site to be composted. Waste from farms is usually only sent to landfills due to surplus and rejected products from packinghouses. However, only about 10 percent of food waste from consumer-facing businesses and homes are recycled and recovered. Transportation costs for food scraps tend to be disproportionately high and market values for energy and compost end products from scraps are worth less than those garnered from plastics and metals.

This Excel-based life cycle inventory (LCI) model develops LCI data for management of wasted food via anaerobic digestion (AD), windrow and aerated static pile (ASP) composting, landfilling and incineration. The inventory model is run for the following scenario options: >AD biogas fate: flare, combined heat and power (CHP) and renewable natural gas (RNG) >Landfill gas fate: flare, electric engine, and RNG >Compost method: windrow and ASP >Incineration technology: Grate furnace - mass burn >Digestate management: compost + land application, land application of whole digestate and digestate landfilling >Land application modeling is limited to avoided fertilizer credits and carbon sequestration benefit. Estimating emissions associated with land application is beyond the scope of this model. Implicitly, emissions associated with compost and digestate are assumed to be equivalent to those from avoided synthetic fertilizer, leading to a net zero change in impact when changing nutrient sources. The output is stored in the 'LCI' tab which can be exported into a csv or other text-based file. Definitions for the field names in the LCI sheet is included in the 'LCI Key' tab.

These data were used to generate the results in the article “Household Food Waste Trending Upwards in the United States: Insights from a National Tracking Survey,” by Ran Li, Yiheng Shu, Kathryn E. Bender & Brian E. Roe, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (doi – pending). The Stata code used to generate results is available from the authors upon request. U.S. residents who participate in consumer panels managed by a commercial vendor were invited by email or text message to participate in a two-part online survey during four waves of data collection: February and March of 2021 (Feb 21 wave, 425 initiated, 361 completed), July and August of 2021 (Jul 21 wave, 606 initiated, 419 completed), December of 2021 and January of 2022 (Dec 21 wave, 760 initiated, 610 completed), and February, March and April of 2022 (Feb 22 wave, 607 initiated, 587 completed). We are not able to determine if any respondents participated in multiple waves, i.e., if any of the observations are repeat participants. All participants provided informed consent and received compensation. Inclusion criteria included age 18 years or older and performance of at least half of the household food preparation. No data was collected during major holidays, i.e., the weeks of the Fourth of July (Independence Day), Christmas, or New Years. Recruitment quotas were implemented to ensure sufficient representation by geographical region, race, and age group. Post-hoc sample weights were constructed to reflect population characteristics on age, income and household size. The protocol was approved by the local Internal Review Board. The approach begins with participants completing an initial survey that ends with an announcement that a follow-up survey will arrive in about one week, and that for the next 7 days, participants should pay close attention to the amounts of different foods their household throws away, feeds to animals or composts because the food is past date, spoiled or no longer wanted for other reasons. They are told to exclude items they would normally not eat, such as bones, pits, and shells. Approximately 7 days later they received the follow-up survey, which elicited the amount of waste in up to 24 categories of food and included other questions (see supplemental materials for core survey questions). Waste amounts in each category are reported by selecting from one of several ranges of possible amounts. The gram weight for categories with volumetric ranges (e.g., listed in cups) were derived by assigning an appropriate mass to the midpoint of the selected range consistent with the food category. For the categories with highly variable weight per volume (e.g., a cup of raw asparagus weighs about 7 times more than a cup of raw chopped arugula), we use the profile of items most consumed in the United States to determine the appropriate gram weight. For display purposes, the 24 categories are consolidated into 8 more general categories. Total weekly household food waste is calculated by summing up reported gram amounts across all categories. We divide this total by the number of household members to generate the per person weekly food waste amount.

How big of a problem is food waste in the United States? 1,000 United States adult citizens responded to this question. Around ** percent of those surveyed said it is "a very big problem." Notably, ** percent of respondents were unsure if food waste is a big problem.

This data set is the result of a systematic review of studies on food waste disposed in the United States, an issue which major consequences for social, nutritional, economic, and environmental issues. It was created to determine how much food is discarded in the U.S., and to determine if specific factors drive increased disposal. By applying meta-analytic tools on it this dataset, it was found that the aggregate proportion of food waste in U.S. municipal solid waste from 1995 to 2013 was 0.147 (95% CI 0.137–0.157) of total disposed waste, which is lower than that estimated by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the same period (0.176). Further, that the proportion of food waste increased significantly with time, and there were no significant differences in food waste between rural and urban samples, or between commercial/institutional and residential samples. These results are published in the study titled Quantification of Food Waste Disposal in the United States: A Meta-Analysis (Thyberg et al., 2015).

The data archived here are the raw data required to reproduce all analysis presented in a manuscript currently in press at Resources, Conservation & Recycling.Read, Q. D. & Muth, M. K. (2020). Cost-effectiveness of four food waste interventions: is food waste reduction a "win-win?" Resources, Conservation & Recycling, in press.This dataset is intended for use with the code archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4021655 . Please refer to the README.md file in that repository for instructions on how to download the data and reproduce the analysis.The data archived in this repository are from a variety of different sources. As much as is practicable, they are presented here in their raw form as they were downloaded, without any processing. All processing steps can be replicated using the code archived in the accompanying code repository.Abstract of manuscriptAt least 30% of food is wasted during the journey from farm to processor to retailer to consumer in the United States, accounting for an estimated 20% of the environmental impact of the food system. The food waste problem is well characterized, but solutions are not: there has been little rigorous comparison of the costs and potential benefits of food waste reduction interventions. Food waste reduction is often described as a “win-win,” benefiting consumers, the environment, and businesses’ bottom line. We present a method for evaluating this claim by accounting for the costs and environmental benefits of food waste reduction. The procedure involves assembling data on costs and efficacy of the intervention, scaling the costs up to the national level, estimating the quantity and value of food waste averted, and finally estimating the potential averted environmental impact. We apply our method to four representative nationwide interventions: consumer education and public awareness campaigns, spoilage prevention packaging for produce and meat, standardization of date labels, and foodservice waste tracking systems. The estimated annual cost of each intervention varied from $126 to $595 million. The environmental cost-effectiveness of the interventions varied two- to threefold (for example, 6 to 16 kg CO2 reduced per $1 invested). Outstanding questions include how to scale interventions to the national level and how to address the mismatch between who incurs the costs of implementation and who benefits. Our method can be adapted to waste interventions across the food system and in countries beyond the United States.

In 2018, the largest share of food waste in the United States was generated within the industrial sector, which generated approximately ***** percent of the total food waste of all the analyzed segments. Restaurants generated ***** percent.

These data were used to generate the results in the article “Household Food Waste Trending Upwards in the United States: Insights from a National Tracking Survey,” by Ran Li, Yiheng Shu, Kathryn E. Bender & Brian E. Roe, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (doi – https://doi.org/10.1002/jaa2.59). The Stata code used to generate results is available from the authors upon request. U.S. residents who participate in consumer panels managed by a commercial vendor were invited by email or text message to participate in a two-part online survey during four waves of data collection: February and March of 2021 (Feb 21 wave, 425 initiated, 361 completed), July and August of 2021 (Jul 21 wave, 606 initiated, 419 completed), December of 2021 and January of 2022 (Dec 21 wave, 760 initiated, 610 completed), and February, March and April of 2022 (Feb 22 wave, 607 initiated, 587 completed), July, August and Septemper of 2022 (Jul 22 wave, 1817 initiated, 1067 completed). We are not able to determine if any respondents participated in multiple waves, i.e., if any of the observations are repeat participants. All participants provided informed consent and received compensation. Inclusion criteria included age 18 years or older and performance of at least half of the household food preparation. No data was collected during major holidays, i.e., the weeks of the Fourth of July (Independence Day), Christmas, or New Years. Recruitment quotas were implemented to ensure sufficient representation by geographical region, race, and age group. Post-hoc sample weights were constructed to reflect population characteristics on age, income and household size. The protocol was approved by the local Internal Review Board. The approach begins with participants completing an initial survey that ends with an announcement that a follow-up survey will arrive in about one week, and that for the next 7 days, participants should pay close attention to the amounts of different foods their household throws away, feeds to animals or composts because the food is past date, spoiled or no longer wanted for other reasons. They are told to exclude items they would normally not eat, such as bones, pits, and shells. Approximately 7 days later they received the follow-up survey, which elicited the amount of waste in up to 24 categories of food and included other questions (see supplemental materials for core survey questions in Li et al. 2023). Waste amounts in each category are reported by selecting from one of several ranges of possible amounts. The gram weight for categories with volumetric ranges (e.g., listed in cups) were derived by assigning an appropriate mass to the midpoint of the selected range consistent with the food category. For the categories with highly variable weight per volume (e.g., a cup of raw asparagus weighs about 7 times more than a cup of raw chopped arugula), we use the profile of items most consumed in the United States to determine the appropriate gram weight. For display purposes, the 24 categories are consolidated into 8 more general categories. Total weekly household food waste is calculated by summing up reported gram amounts across all categories. We divide this total by the number of household members to generate the per person weekly food waste amount.

Food losses and food waste (FLW) have become a global concern in recent years and emerge as a priority in the global and national political agenda (e.g., with Target 12.3 in the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals). A good understanding of the availability and quality of global FLW data is a prerequisite for tracking progress on reduction targets, analyzing environmental impacts, and exploring mitigation strategies for FLW. There has been a growing body of literature on FLW quantification in the past years; however, significant challenges remain, such as data inconsistency and a narrow temporal, geographical, and food supply chain coverage. In this paper, we examined 202 publications which reported FLW data for 84 countries and 52 individual years from 1933 to 2014. We found that most existing publications are conducted for a few industrialized countries (e.g., the United Kingdom and the United States), and over half of them are based only on secondary data, which signals high uncertainties in the existing global FLW database. Despite these uncertainties, existing data indicate that per-capita food waste in the household increases with an increase of per-capita GDP. We believe that more consistent, in-depth, and primary-data-based studies, especially for emerging economies, are badly needed to better inform relevant policy on FLW reduction and environmental impacts mitigation.

Data for tables and figures. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Dominguez, T., J. Aurell, B. Gullett, R. Eninger, and D. Yamamoto. Characterizing emissions from open burning of military food waste and ration packaging compositions. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management. Springer Japan KK, Tokyo, JAPAN, 20(2): 903-913, (2018).

Per capita food waste in the United States amounted to *** pounds in 2019. This excludes food waste from food manufacturing and processing and only includes retail, food services, and waste generated at home. From 2016 to 2019 per capita food waste increased by ** pounds.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has collected and reported data on the generation and disposal of waste in the United States for more than 30 years. We use this information to measure the success of waste reduction and recycling programs across the country. Our trash, or municipal solid waste (MSW), is made up of the things we commonly use and then throw away. These materials include items such as packaging, food scraps, grass clippings, sofas, computers, tires, and refrigerators. MSW does not include industrial, hazardous, or construction waste. The data on Materials Discarded in the Municipal Waste Stream, 1960 to 2009, provides estimated data in thousands of tons discarded after recycling and compost recovery for the years 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009. In this data set, discards include combustion with energy recovery. This data table does not include construction & demolition debris, industrial process wastes, or certain other wastes. The "Other" category includes electrolytes in batteries and fluff pulp, feces, and urine in disposable diapers. Details may not add to totals due to rounding.

United States Imports of Residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder was US$5.45 Billion during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. United States Imports of Residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on July of 2025.

Diverting food waste from landfills is crucial to reduce emissions and meet Paris Agreement targets. Between 2014 and 2024, nine US states banned commercial waste generators---such as grocery chains---from landfilling food waste, expecting a 10–15% waste reduction. However, no evaluation of these bans exists. We compile a comprehensive waste dataset covering 36 US states between 1996 and 2019 to evaluate the first five implemented state-level bans. Contrary to policymakers' expectations, we can reject aggregate waste reductions higher than 3.2%, and cannot reject a zero-null aggregate effect. Moreover, we cannot reject a zero-null effect for any other state except Massachusetts, which gradually achieved a 13.2% reduction. Our findings reveal the need to reassess food waste bans, using Massachusetts as a benchmark for success., The raw data for this paper have been received by individual states in PDF or Excel files. (For each state there might be several PDF or Excel files for each year.) In the data we uploaded on GitHub, we transferred these raw data (the various pdfs and excels) into a single CSV file and have created a standardized waste outcome---specifically, state-generated, municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal. In the README file, we include more details regarding all the other supporting data and code we have used., , # Data for: Of the first five US states with food waste bans, Massachusetts alone has reduced landfill waste

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bzkh189h4

In this repository, we provide all the data and necessary information for replication of our paper titled "Of the first five US states with food waste bans, Massachusetts alone has reduced landfilled waste". We include all the raw data and software we used to produce all tables and figures in this paper. Additionally, for easy replication, we include some outputs generated by our code, such as power analysis results. These are available in the "Data from Code" section.

Raw data

1. Waste data: includes all the data we use for our analysis (power2_impexp.csv)
   • Note: in this file "disposal" refers to state-generated MSW for disposal. That is, we have (i) used only the MSW fraction of the total waste and (ii) excluded the imported waste and included waste exports. (For more details, please se...

United States Imports from China of Residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder was US$271.32 Million during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. United States Imports from China of Residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on July of 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Export Price Index (Harmonized System): Residues and Waste from the Food Industries; Prepared Animal Feed (ID23) from Dec 1992 to May 2025 about animals, waste, harmonized, exports, food, industry, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

United States Exports of residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder was US$14.43 Billion during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. United States Exports of residues, wastes of food industry, animal fodder - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on June of 2025.