Assessment of environmental and economic aspects of household food waste using a new Environmental-Economic Footprint (EN-EC) index: A case study of Daegu, South Korea

Highlights

• Environmental and economic losses of 42 major food wastes were investigated.

• GHG emission, water footprint, and economic loss are the key factors of the study.

• A new EN-EC Footprint index showed the highest losses by animal-based food wastes.

• The findings may be used to mitigate the impacts caused by household food waste.

Abstract

While the global food demand has continued to increase, the enormous natural resources required for its production are limited, in addition to the accompanying environmental degradation. Despite all these, food waste generation continues unabated, especially at the household level, further compounding the environmental impacts, economic cost, and food security issues. In this study, granular primary data of edible household food waste using direct-weighing from 218 households in Daegu, South Korea was used to assess the environmental (carbon footprint, and water footprint) and economic (wasted cost) impacts associated with their wastage. For the first time, the Environmental-Economic (EN-EC) Footprint index is proposed as a single indicator for environmental and economic impacts to assess the hotspot food waste products among the selected 42 major food waste items. This study presents that the selected food products had a significant contribution to an average edible food waste generation of 0.73 ± 0.06 kg (per household/day), 0.71 ± 0.05 kg CO₂eq of GHG emissions, 0.46 ± 0.04 m³ of water footprint, and 3855.93 ± 527.27 won of economic loss, respectively. Based on the newly developed EN-EC Footprint index, we found that wasted animal-based food products had relatively high environmental and economic losses compared to non-animal-based food products. The findings of this study presented a novel method of estimating combined environmental and economic impacts associated with household food waste, which may further act as convenient guides for the waste management authorities and policymakers in addressing the mitigation of household food waste impacts.

Introduction

The sustainable global food production system that would meet the growing food demands of the increasing population using the existing constraint natural resources, devoid of environmental degradation, is one of the serious challenges to be faced in the coming decades. Already, food production consumed up to 70% of the global freshwater resources and responsible for up to 10–30% of the total global emission of greenhouse gases (Garnett, 2011; Foley et al., 2011; Vermeulen et al., 2012). The demand for these resources and the associated environmental impacts are expected to go up by the year 2050 due to the anticipated population growth and increase in food production by 25–75% (United Nations, 2017; Hunter et al., 2017). Unfortunately, the demand and waste of intensive-resource foods, especially by both emerging and developed nations, have been reported to increase recently (Aschemann-Witzel et al., 2018; Blas et al., 2018; Adelodun et al., 2019).

However, addressing the inefficiency in the food production systems, readjustment of consumption patterns, and reduction in enormous food waste have been recognized as possible approaches to address the challenges of resources constraints in food production and the mitigation of accompanied environmental and economic impacts (Adelodun et al., 2020; Blas et al., 2018; Alexander et al., 2017; Chaboud and Daviron, 2017). Food waste has been acknowledged as creating a daunting challenge to achieve desired sustainable food systems (Foley et al., 2011). For instance, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported an annual global estimate of 1.3 billion tonnes of food wastage with a monetary value of $750 billion (FAO, 2015a). At the same time, the associated greenhouse gas emissions across the supply chain accounted for about 6.8% of the total global emissions (FAO, 2015b). Using the country national data from the Food and Agriculture Organization statistical database, Adelodun and Choi (2020) showed that nearly 15 Mt of food wastage was generated between 2007 and 2017 across the different supply chains in Korea, equivalent to 15 billion m³ of water resources and 20 Mt CO₂eq. of greenhouse gas emissions, and with a 13% increasing potential by 2030. Buzby and Hyman (2012) also reported an estimated economic loss of $165.6 billion associated with food waste at both retail and consumer levels in the United States in 2008. Further, the avoidable food waste, estimated at 58% of the total food production, had an annual monetary value of $49.5 billion in Canada (Gooch et al., 2019). All these narratives have led to progressive approaches targeting reducing the enormous food waste generation to address the resource constraints, food security, and various accompanying impacts.

As one of the global policy initiatives instituted to address the food waste issue, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) declared an intervention themed “SAVE FOOD” in May 2011 (FAO, 2011). This initiative has been further strengthened by the recent adoption of the Target 12.3 set goals by the United Nations members on the Sustainable Development Goals. The specific set objective is to achieve the reduction of global per capita food waste by half at both retail and consumer level by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). At the country level, South Korea is implementing “Pay-As-You-Thrash” to combat food waste issues at the household level. This policy mandated each household to be responsible for the cost of food waste amount generated and disposed of. The process is being implemented through the purchase of plastic bags to dispose of the household food waste or the use of a Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) machine (volume-based pricing system) that weighs the disposed of food waste and the household pays accordingly. Similarly, the United Kingdoms initiated a Waste and Resource Action Program (WRAP) with the theme “Love Food Hate Waste” as a charity program involving stakeholders such as governments, businesses, and communities on the improvement of resources efficiency of household food waste (Quested and Parry, 2017). Some countries and cities across Europe including Austria, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, among others, have also implemented the source-separation and Pay-as-you-throw policy on household waste (Reichenbach, 2008; Dri et al., 2018), with reported significant reduction in food waste compared to other residual wastes (Reichenbach, 2008). Morlok et al. (2017) attributed the reduction of 84 kg/capita/year residual waste to pay-as-you-throw policy in Aschaffenburg, Germany, between the years 1995 and 2000, with increasing recycling rates of food waste. Dahlén and Lagerkvist (2010) also reported about a 20% reduction in household waste generated from the households with a pay-as-you-throw scheme compared to the households that do not implement the scheme in Sweden. Despite these tremendous efforts on the reduction of food waste, household food waste represents a considerable 35% proportion of the total generated food wastage across the supply chain (Chalak et al., 2016; Lipinski et al., 2013). This figure is more pronounced in the developed and industrialized countries due to their improved gross domestic product and economy (Xue et al., 2017). The household food waste reported at the European level reached about 42% of the total food produced (Monier et al., 2011), while the United Kingdom households generated a whopping 7.3 Mt of food waste in 2015 (Quested and Parry, 2017).

Although there are growing studies that investigate household food waste in terms of weight (Jørgen et al., 2016; Edjabou et al., 2016; Delley and Brunner, 2018; Abeliotis et al., 2019; Ilakovac et al., 2020), the attributed impacts such as the environmental and economic cost are often ignored. Only a few studies have been attempted to estimate the environmental and economic impacts of household food waste generation (Aldaco et al., 2020; von Massow et al., 2019; Garcia-Herrero et al., 2018; Nahman et al., 2012). While to the best of our knowledge, no study has attempted to use a singular index that can serve as an indicator for combined environmental and economic impacts of household food waste. Meanwhile, a singular indicator for both environmental and economic impact assessments is of utmost importance considering that the expensive food items might not necessarily be the ones with high environmental impacts, making the identification of targeted hotspot food items that could address both impacts indispensable. Moreover, a single indicator eliminates the difficulty and bias that comes with a trade-off in a decision-making process (Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2020; Garcia-Herrero et al., 2018).

This study assesses the environmental and economic impacts associated with household food waste in Daegu, Korea, based on the granular primary data of edible household food waste sampled via direct-weighing. Further, a new Environmental-Economic (EN-EC) Footprint index to identifying the wasted hotspot food products with combined significant environmental and economic impacts as a singular indicator was proposed. The developed footprint index provides an informed insight into the targeted food waste items that could address the environmental and economic impacts associated with their wastage.