Did you know food is the largest form of waste in the United States? Simply put, food waste is a big environmental problem. It's the largest source of waste in our nation's landfills, where it sits and produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

There's a simple solution to this food waste challenge, and it's sitting right under many American sinks. But a new survey shows that nearly half of Americans didn't know that in-sink garbage disposers can reduce the amount of food waste headed to our landfills. The survey, commissioned by Emerson's InSinkErator® business unit, indicated strong concern for food waste's impact on the environment, with 66 percent citing it as a significant problem. 62 percent of Americans didn't realize leftovers and other food waste are piling up in landfills. This is despite 72 percent of respondents saying the trash is where they throw out the inedible surplus. But 49 percent of respondents didn't connect garbage disposer use with alleviating this problem. In fact, 72 percent admit they still sometimes dispose of food and food waste in the trash. This discrepancy could be a matter of familiarity with disposals, with industry estimates that more than half of American homes have disposers installed today.

"The survey also determined Americans feel that food in the fridge that has gone bad are determining this a couple of different ways; 75 percent of us use our nose; sniff test from there 50 percent of us are using our eyes if it looks wrong you know; if changed color if something doesn't look right but 25 percent of Americans are brave and their actually taste testing their food to determine if it's gone bad or not," said Remodeler and Designer Laurie March. "A lot of people aren't sure what difference it makes if you put food into a disposer or a trash can. But food waste that goes into a trash can heads straight into a landfill. Now from there this pile of food is sitting and breaking down. Its seeing a lot of methane gas and this contributes to global warming."

InSinkErator garbage disposals grind even the toughest foods into tiny pieces. Disposal technology has advanced significantly in recent years, with today's InSinkErator Evolution® disposals capable of grinding everything from corn cobs, bones and apple cores to banana peels, avocado pits and fruit and veggie peels. Once ground, food waste is sent through a home's wastewater plumbing to treatment facilities, which are equipped to process the slurry more efficiently than landfills. A growing number of communities are taking an additional environmentally responsible step to convert ground food waste into energy by using anaerobic digesters wastewater treatment systems to process food waste. With digesters, methane gas can be captured and used to produce renewable energy. Other byproducts are fertilizer and clean water.

The combination of disposals and digesters may deliver significant reductions in food waste headed to landfills. In a series of two-year pilot projects supported by InSinkErator, five U.S. cities saw a 30 percent reduction in food waste in participating households on average. The city of Philadelphia, one of the pilot program participants, last year enacted a new building ordinance calling for installation of disposals in all new homes constructed in the city.

For more information visit http://www.insinkerator.com/



About Laurie March

