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Household Food Waste
Food Waste
Think – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (compost)
Reduce
Homeowners can also do much to reduce the amount of food they waste, such as working with the food already in your refrigerator and planning meals around those items. Not only will this reduce waste, but it will make your food dollars go further.
Plan your menu and shop for just those things on your menu.
Buy in quantities that you realistically need and will use. If you buy in bulk, make sure to have a way to keep the food from spoiling before you use it. An entire head of lettuce may be cheaper than bagged or the salad bar pound for pound, but if you end up throwing most of it out because you didn’t use it all, you may have just thrown away those savings.
Think “what do we have to eat” instead of “what do I want to eat.” Use up the food you already bought and have in the house instead of buying more. You already paid for it – so use it.
Reuse
Use up your leftovers – take leftovers from dinner to work for lunch. This can save you a bunch of money over buying your lunch every day.
Turn leftovers into a completely different meal. For example, extra cooked rice makes a great fried rice. The Internet has some excellent websites that have recipes for whatever food and ingredients you have leftover and on hand such as Love Food, Hate Waste 
. Go to your computer and enter “leftover recipes” on your favorite Internet browser and see all the great ideas that come up for all different kinds of leftover food. Challenge your kids to find a recipe for a leftover and have them help you make it.
Consider preserving or canning surplus fruits and vegetables – especially abundant seasonal produce. Relish Yo' Mama provides step-by-step instructions on just how to do it. Also check out Green Planet’s Eat Your Trash to Improve Your Cooking for tips and tricks on recovering food waste.
Donate – Don’t let it go to waste.
So you got a great deal on multiple pack of something only to get home only to find it’s just way too much for you to be able to use before it expires or you just don’t care for it. If the food (or anything else) is still in good condition, contact your local food rescue, pantry or shelter and see if they can use it. There are more hungry and needy in your community than you realize, so donate your extras to those in need — you may even be able to get a tax deduction for donation.
You can find a food bank in your area or Food Bank Locator work directly with your local agency or charity. To find those and other programs in your area, check the government and community services pages of your local phone book or just enter “food donations” along with your town and state on your computer Internet browser.
Recycle—Compost!
Homeowners and other small scale generators of food waste can recycle (a.k.a. compost) at home or on their own property. More and more communities across the country have begun collecting food waste – often it is combined with yard waste collection bins. Check with your local government solid waste agency for information on local composting resources and if they don’t offer collection for composting, suggest that they start. Or check out findacomposter.com for a composter near you who may be able to take your food scraps and yard wastes.
Better yet – compost at home. Turn your food scraps and yard trimmings into compost that in turn feeds your soil and plants. Compost is an incredible soil amendment that you can easily make right at home. Composting at home saves your wallet by not having to buy expensive soil conditioners for your garden, but is also saves your nose – since most of your food scraps will no longer be sitting in the trash can stinking up your house waiting for trash day.
Homeowners can also learn how to compost in their own homes by going to our composting website or by downloading Backyard Composting: It’s Only Natural (PDF) (2 pp, 627K, about PDF).
Resources
For additional ideas on how minimize food waste and maximize food use check out Become a Use-It-Up Cook .
You can create a compost pile in your backyard or indoors, depending on your available space. Backyard and indoor composting are most suitable for households to convert small quantities of organic materials, such as yard trimmings and food scraps, into compost that can be spread in garden beds, under shrubs, or use it as potting soil for outdoor plants.
Visit EPA’s GreenScapes website for additional ideas on how to improve the health and appearance of your lawn and garden while protecting and preserving natural resources.
