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How the world wastes hundreds of billions of meals in a year, in three charts

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Saturday, May 4, 2024

The UN reports that over a trillion dollars worth of food gets thrown out every year worldwide. | Mykola Miakshykov/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images Think twice before throwing out your leftovers A billion meals are wasted every single day, according to a recent report from the United Nations. And that’s a conservative estimate. It’s not just food down the drain, but money, too. The 2024 UN Food Waste Index report — which measured food waste at the consumer and retail level across more than 100 countries — found that over a trillion dollars worth of food gets thrown out every year, from households to grocery stores to farms, all across the globe. Such waste takes a significant toll on the environment. The process of producing food — the raising of animals, the land and water use, and the subsequent pollution that goes with it — is horribly intensive on the planet. Food waste squanders those efforts, and then makes it worse: as it rots in landfills, it creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Food waste alone is responsible for an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. To put that into perspective, if food waste were a country, it would be third in emissions produced, behind only the United States and China. Perhaps the most immediate harm, though, is the more than 780 million people who went hungry around the world in 2022, even as hundreds of billions of meals were wasted that same year. The world has become more efficient at producing a lot of food, so much so that there’s more than enough to go around for everyone. But in 2022, nearly 30 percent of people were moderately or severely food insecure, defined by the Food and Agricultural Organization as lacking regular access to safe and nutritious food. Food waste reduction is “an opportunity to reduce costs and to tackle some of the biggest environmental and social issues of our time: fighting climate change and addressing food insecurity,” the authors of the report write. Food waste might seem like an easy problem to solve — just stop wasting food. But in order to snuff food waste out, individuals, businesses, and policymakers alike will need to make some serious changes — and those changes will look different for each country. Global food waste is not just a consumer-level problem, but also a nasty side effect of inefficient food systems that have environmental and social implications. The UN has the goal of slashing food waste in half by 2030. For that to happen, the authors of the Food Waste Index say there’s one crucial step all countries need to do: data collection. You can’t stop wasting food until you know how much food you’re wasting. How do you measure food waste? According to the report — which was spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and co-authored by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a UK-based climate organization — households contributed to 60 percent of all food waste generated globally in 2022, compared to nearly 28 percent for food service and a little under 13 percent for retailers. However, it’s important to note that there was a lot more usable data for food waste in households than there was for food service or retail — and that’s especially true for low-income and middle-income countries. The report uses a three-level methodology with each level increasing in accuracy and utility. The first level is an estimate using preexisting food waste data from countries. For countries that haven’t yet started collecting data on food waste, UNEP took data from other nearby countries that had similar income levels and then extrapolated that information to create estimates. These figures are a helpful start to understanding the scale at which food waste may exist in a country, but the report emphasizes that most of the Level 1 estimates are not accurate enough to use beyond that. To clarify which estimates can be used for understanding the scale of a problem and which can be used beyond that, the report also assigned a “confidence” rating to each Level 1 estimate — high, medium, low, very low, or no rating. Only 11 countries were assigned a high confidence rating for household food waste estimates. Of these, Saudi Arabia had the highest amount of household food waste per person annually, at a little over 231 pounds per person. Bhutan had the lowest, at just under 42 pounds per person. The next two levels of the methodology lay out a framework in which countries can track their food waste generation. Level 2 is the recommended, baseline approach for countries and requires an actual measurement, rather than just an estimate, of food waste that is suitable for tracking food waste at a national level. Level 3 goes beyond that and gives guidances for how countries can include additional helpful data, like where wasted food goes, how much of food waste is edible, and food loss from manufacturing. While some organizations and institutions define food waste as edible food mass, the report includes both the edible and inedible parts of food. That may make it seem as if the estimations are inflated, but what’s considered edible and inedible can differ from culture to culture — think peels of fruits, or certain parts of animal meat. They also acknowledge that it’s difficult to measure edible food waste without also measuring the inedible parts, and most countries haven’t done so. Notably, the report only includes what gets thrown out at the household, retail, and food service level. That means that the Food Waste Index does not measure “food loss,” which is what gets lost in the production part of the process at farms and factories, as well as in transportation. According to the FAO, an estimated 13 percent of the world’s food is lost in the supply chain prior to hitting shelves. Why does food get wasted? The report also found that on average, household food waste in high-income, upper-middle income, and lower-income countries didn’t differ too much, but the reasons why waste happens will differ across these groups. Variables like access to electricity and refrigeration, dietary habits and behaviors, food distribution infrastructure, country temperature and so forth can all contribute to a country’s food waste levels. While there didn’t seem to be a relationship between a country’s income grouping and household food waste levels, a household’s income within that country — along with other factors — could play a part in their food waste habits. “Just as we expect the reasons for waste to vary between countries, we expect it to vary between households within the same country,” said Hamish Forbes, a senior analyst at WRAP and one of the authors of the 2024 Food Waste Index, via email. “Factors such as kitchen infrastructure, cooking skills/knowledge, cultural norms, time availability, disposable income and so on are all likely to play a role.” In the United States, the Food Waste Index found that food waste is happening mostly at the household and food service level. If we want to get those numbers down, it’s going to take every participant in our food system — from consumers all the way to big businesses and retailers. How can we stop wasting food? It would be reductive to leave the burden of solving food waste and loss to everyday people, when the problem requires solutions across industries, food sectors, governance, and consumers. “The problem is everywhere and requires solutions everywhere,” the report authors write. As of 2022, only 21 countries had made commitments to reducing food waste or food loss as a part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the goals to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change as a part of the Paris Agreement. But out of those 21, only two countries had submitted NDCs to tackle both food waste and food loss, according to a report by WRAP. Those two countries were Jordan and Namibia, according to Forbes. Commitments are a great first step, but what comes next? “There’s a well-known saying that ‘what gets measured gets managed’ and this is very evident in the food loss and waste space,” said Forbes. He added that measurement can show the true scale of our food wastage across different sectors, and in turn, it can also help policymakers identify solutions and where to implement them. “Beyond just measuring the total amount of food waste, measurements in countries, cities or even businesses can identify ‘hotspots’,” Forbes told me. “For example, if I measure food waste in my restaurant and see from that data that most diners are leaving some of their potato fries, then I’m probably serving too much and I can reduce that wastage.” One country that’s made progress is the United Kingdom. In 2005, the UK established the Courtauld Commitment, a series of voluntary agreements between the governments, organizations, and businesses within the UK to reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improve water management. The food waste reduction policies from these agreements work on all parts of the food system: supporting waste management on farms, giving guidance to food service and retail sectors on food redistribution, implementing consumer campaigns, and more. As a result, the UK has reduced per capita food waste by 23 percent in total from 2007 to 2018. Dana Gunders, the executive director of the US-based food waste reduction nonprofit ReFED, told me that in the US, there are a few ways our government can change the consumer environment so that people waste less food. One solution is passing the Food Date Labeling Act. You’ve probably found yourself squinting at a carton of eggs that’s been in your fridge for an unknown amount of time, scouring for the “sell by,” “use by,” or “best by” date and debating how safe it is to consume. As of now, the US doesn’t have a standardized labeling process for food, which has translated into consumer confusion around food quality that leads to throwing out meals that are perfectly safe to eat. Creating a standardized label system with clearer phrasing could help consumers make better choices around food usage. Then there’s Gunder’s big legislative wish: a ban on sending food to landfills, a policy that’s in the jurisdiction of states. According to ReFED, some states and municipalities have enacted policies around limiting, diverting, or banning organic material like food from entering landfills. Gunders also wants to see food service sectors and retailers like grocery stores track their food waste — again, better collection of data helps craft better solutions. She also thinks grocery stores could improve their food donation system. There are some up-and-coming intermediaries, like Too Good To Go, which connects donations from grocery stores and restaurants with consumers. But having a more robust policy that isn’t opt-in can help redistribute perfectly edible food and make sure it doesn’t go to waste. “All companies should have a solid donation policy that is across all of their locations, across all product types,” Gunders said. “Sometimes you have grocers who are great at donating bread, but they really don’t donate milk or dairy or meat or seafood. And so there are ways to do that, and some of the grocers who are best at donating are doing that.” Of course, consumers themselves play a role. Planning meals and being more careful around purchasing food, preserving food in freezers, finding ways to take leftover ingredients and making them into a meal — all are ways individuals can personally reduce their food waste. As for food waste and hunger, the report states that “reducing food waste can increase food availability for those who need it.” Forbes told me that how food loss and waste relates to hunger will depend on the sector we’re focusing on. It’ll take a lot more than simply slashing food waste to fix hunger — which is ultimately a symptom of poverty — but reducing food waste by diverting perfectly edible foods to those who need it can certainly help.

A picture of discarded tangerines in a landfill in Dnipro, Ukraine. — The UN reports that over a trillion dollars worth of food gets thrown out every year worldwide. | Mykola Miakshykov/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Think twice before throwing out your leftovers

A billion meals are wasted every single day, according to a recent report from the United Nations. And that’s a conservative estimate.

It’s not just food down the drain, but money, too. The 2024 UN Food Waste Index report — which measured food waste at the consumer and retail level across more than 100 countries — found that over a trillion dollars worth of food gets thrown out every year, from households to grocery stores to farms, all across the globe.

Such waste takes a significant toll on the environment. The process of producing food — the raising of animals, the land and water use, and the subsequent pollution that goes with it — is horribly intensive on the planet. Food waste squanders those efforts, and then makes it worse: as it rots in landfills, it creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Food waste alone is responsible for an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. To put that into perspective, if food waste were a country, it would be third in emissions produced, behind only the United States and China.

Perhaps the most immediate harm, though, is the more than 780 million people who went hungry around the world in 2022, even as hundreds of billions of meals were wasted that same year. The world has become more efficient at producing a lot of food, so much so that there’s more than enough to go around for everyone. But in 2022, nearly 30 percent of people were moderately or severely food insecure, defined by the Food and Agricultural Organization as lacking regular access to safe and nutritious food.

Food waste reduction is “an opportunity to reduce costs and to tackle some of the biggest environmental and social issues of our time: fighting climate change and addressing food insecurity,” the authors of the report write.

Food waste might seem like an easy problem to solve — just stop wasting food. But in order to snuff food waste out, individuals, businesses, and policymakers alike will need to make some serious changes — and those changes will look different for each country. Global food waste is not just a consumer-level problem, but also a nasty side effect of inefficient food systems that have environmental and social implications.

The UN has the goal of slashing food waste in half by 2030. For that to happen, the authors of the Food Waste Index say there’s one crucial step all countries need to do: data collection. You can’t stop wasting food until you know how much food you’re wasting.

How do you measure food waste?

According to the report — which was spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and co-authored by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a UK-based climate organization — households contributed to 60 percent of all food waste generated globally in 2022, compared to nearly 28 percent for food service and a little under 13 percent for retailers. However, it’s important to note that there was a lot more usable data for food waste in households than there was for food service or retail — and that’s especially true for low-income and middle-income countries.

The report uses a three-level methodology with each level increasing in accuracy and utility. The first level is an estimate using preexisting food waste data from countries. For countries that haven’t yet started collecting data on food waste, UNEP took data from other nearby countries that had similar income levels and then extrapolated that information to create estimates. These figures are a helpful start to understanding the scale at which food waste may exist in a country, but the report emphasizes that most of the Level 1 estimates are not accurate enough to use beyond that.

To clarify which estimates can be used for understanding the scale of a problem and which can be used beyond that, the report also assigned a “confidence” rating to each Level 1 estimate — high, medium, low, very low, or no rating. Only 11 countries were assigned a high confidence rating for household food waste estimates. Of these, Saudi Arabia had the highest amount of household food waste per person annually, at a little over 231 pounds per person. Bhutan had the lowest, at just under 42 pounds per person.

A bar graph titled “Household food waste per person, around the world”. Below the title, it says “Saudi Arabia has the highest waste rate and Bhutan the lowest among the 11 countries deemed by researchers to have strong household data on food waste.” The eleven countries are, in order from most waste to least waste, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Qatar, Jamaica, Ghana, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, Japan, and Bhutan.

The next two levels of the methodology lay out a framework in which countries can track their food waste generation. Level 2 is the recommended, baseline approach for countries and requires an actual measurement, rather than just an estimate, of food waste that is suitable for tracking food waste at a national level. Level 3 goes beyond that and gives guidances for how countries can include additional helpful data, like where wasted food goes, how much of food waste is edible, and food loss from manufacturing.

While some organizations and institutions define food waste as edible food mass, the report includes both the edible and inedible parts of food. That may make it seem as if the estimations are inflated, but what’s considered edible and inedible can differ from culture to culture — think peels of fruits, or certain parts of animal meat. They also acknowledge that it’s difficult to measure edible food waste without also measuring the inedible parts, and most countries haven’t done so.

Notably, the report only includes what gets thrown out at the household, retail, and food service level. That means that the Food Waste Index does not measure “food loss,” which is what gets lost in the production part of the process at farms and factories, as well as in transportation. According to the FAO, an estimated 13 percent of the world’s food is lost in the supply chain prior to hitting shelves.

Why does food get wasted?

The report also found that on average, household food waste in high-income, upper-middle income, and lower-income countries didn’t differ too much, but the reasons why waste happens will differ across these groups. Variables like access to electricity and refrigeration, dietary habits and behaviors, food distribution infrastructure, country temperature and so forth can all contribute to a country’s food waste levels.

Bar graph titled “How much food people waste at home in six major regions of the world”. It also says “Humans waste a lot of food but often for different reasons. In low-income countries, insufficient refrigeration can drive waste, whereas people in high-income countries tend to be less concerned with waste and resource use.” From most waste to least, the regions are Latin America/the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, Northern America, Eastern/Southeastern Asia, and Eastern Europe.

While there didn’t seem to be a relationship between a country’s income grouping and household food waste levels, a household’s income within that country — along with other factors — could play a part in their food waste habits.

“Just as we expect the reasons for waste to vary between countries, we expect it to vary between households within the same country,” said Hamish Forbes, a senior analyst at WRAP and one of the authors of the 2024 Food Waste Index, via email. “Factors such as kitchen infrastructure, cooking skills/knowledge, cultural norms, time availability, disposable income and so on are all likely to play a role.”

In the United States, the Food Waste Index found that food waste is happening mostly at the household and food service level. If we want to get those numbers down, it’s going to take every participant in our food system — from consumers all the way to big businesses and retailers.

A pie chart titled “Where food gets wasted in the United States.” Below the title it says “Most consumer-level food waste occurs in the home or in foodservice.” Figures represent annual food waste per person. Homes waste is 160.9 pounds, food service wastes 163.1 pounds, and retail is 26.5 pounds.

How can we stop wasting food?

It would be reductive to leave the burden of solving food waste and loss to everyday people, when the problem requires solutions across industries, food sectors, governance, and consumers. “The problem is everywhere and requires solutions everywhere,” the report authors write.

As of 2022, only 21 countries had made commitments to reducing food waste or food loss as a part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the goals to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change as a part of the Paris Agreement. But out of those 21, only two countries had submitted NDCs to tackle both food waste and food loss, according to a report by WRAP. Those two countries were Jordan and Namibia, according to Forbes.

Commitments are a great first step, but what comes next? “There’s a well-known saying that ‘what gets measured gets managed’ and this is very evident in the food loss and waste space,” said Forbes. He added that measurement can show the true scale of our food wastage across different sectors, and in turn, it can also help policymakers identify solutions and where to implement them.

“Beyond just measuring the total amount of food waste, measurements in countries, cities or even businesses can identify ‘hotspots’,” Forbes told me. “For example, if I measure food waste in my restaurant and see from that data that most diners are leaving some of their potato fries, then I’m probably serving too much and I can reduce that wastage.”

One country that’s made progress is the United Kingdom. In 2005, the UK established the Courtauld Commitment, a series of voluntary agreements between the governments, organizations, and businesses within the UK to reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improve water management. The food waste reduction policies from these agreements work on all parts of the food system: supporting waste management on farms, giving guidance to food service and retail sectors on food redistribution, implementing consumer campaigns, and more. As a result, the UK has reduced per capita food waste by 23 percent in total from 2007 to 2018.

Dana Gunders, the executive director of the US-based food waste reduction nonprofit ReFED, told me that in the US, there are a few ways our government can change the consumer environment so that people waste less food.

One solution is passing the Food Date Labeling Act. You’ve probably found yourself squinting at a carton of eggs that’s been in your fridge for an unknown amount of time, scouring for the “sell by,” “use by,” or “best by” date and debating how safe it is to consume. As of now, the US doesn’t have a standardized labeling process for food, which has translated into consumer confusion around food quality that leads to throwing out meals that are perfectly safe to eat. Creating a standardized label system with clearer phrasing could help consumers make better choices around food usage.

Then there’s Gunder’s big legislative wish: a ban on sending food to landfills, a policy that’s in the jurisdiction of states. According to ReFED, some states and municipalities have enacted policies around limiting, diverting, or banning organic material like food from entering landfills.

Gunders also wants to see food service sectors and retailers like grocery stores track their food waste — again, better collection of data helps craft better solutions. She also thinks grocery stores could improve their food donation system. There are some up-and-coming intermediaries, like Too Good To Go, which connects donations from grocery stores and restaurants with consumers. But having a more robust policy that isn’t opt-in can help redistribute perfectly edible food and make sure it doesn’t go to waste.

“All companies should have a solid donation policy that is across all of their locations, across all product types,” Gunders said. “Sometimes you have grocers who are great at donating bread, but they really don’t donate milk or dairy or meat or seafood. And so there are ways to do that, and some of the grocers who are best at donating are doing that.”

Of course, consumers themselves play a role. Planning meals and being more careful around purchasing food, preserving food in freezers, finding ways to take leftover ingredients and making them into a meal — all are ways individuals can personally reduce their food waste.

As for food waste and hunger, the report states that “reducing food waste can increase food availability for those who need it.” Forbes told me that how food loss and waste relates to hunger will depend on the sector we’re focusing on. It’ll take a lot more than simply slashing food waste to fix hunger — which is ultimately a symptom of poverty — but reducing food waste by diverting perfectly edible foods to those who need it can certainly help.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

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Low waste doesn’t have to mean no fun – with a little creativity you can celebrate an occasion without hurting the planet Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprintGot a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.comWhen planning a big bash to celebrate my 40th last year, I wanted a stylish and memorable celebration that didn’t cost the earth.Between food waste, plastic packaging, single-use decorations and fast fashion, the environmental footprint of festivities can quickly add up. Thankfully though, low waste doesn’t have to mean no fun. Continue reading...

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Profepa says the material in the bags has “hazardous characteristics”.The agency ordered the company to sample the underlying soil and develop a remediation plan for any contamination.“The sacks are being placed in storage areas with reinforced concrete floors, walls, and steel sheet roofing,” said a statement from regulators at Profepa. It added that the environmental investigation was ongoing and that authorities were also reviewing the licenses of other companies that handle hazardous waste in the state of Nuevo León.The findings follow an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, a Mexican investigative journalism unit, that revealed that the United States exports about 760,000 tons a year of its hazardous waste to Mexico – a practice that environmentalists say raises the danger that the toxic material will not be handled as safely as would be required in the US.The Zinc Nacional plant in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, on 14 September 2024. Photograph: Bernardo De Niz/Quinto Elemento LabIn Mexico, Zinc Nacional is one of the largest importers of US toxic waste, and recycles contaminated metal dust sent to the country by major US steel companies in order to recover zinc.Toxicologist Martín Soto Jiménez, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, conducted sampling in the neighborhood around the zinc plant and found high levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic in soil samples – including inside some homes and schools.In response to questions from reporters, the company said it was working with local and federal authorities and was responding to points raised in inspections.“We have successfully completed the removal of 100% of zinc oxide material from our operation yards,” it said.It said Meremex had been shut down in 2023, and that “we will complete the removal of its inventory in the next weeks”.In addition, the company said it had “serious concerns about both the methodology rigor and reliability of the study” by Soto Jiménez, and about the way it had been reported. It suggested that not enough sites had been tested for contaminants, that the resulting story selectively highlighted only the worst results, that many of the results had not been “alarming”, as the story said, and that the study had been inconclusive as to whether heavy metals found in the samples had originated in the company’s factory.After the original story was published, state and federal regulators began immediate investigations of the Zinc Nacional plant. Regulators said they shut down 15 unauthorized pieces of equipment at the plant, in addition to ordering the materials stored in the scrapyard moved.Environmental experts said it is troubling to see so much chemical material accumulating around the property of a plant that is handling hazardous wastes.“The volume itself is concerning,” said James Rybarczyk, a retired chemistry professor, who once served as an emergency responder to incidents involving chemical hazards in the US. “That’s an enormous quantity of anything – and to just be sitting there?”Rybarczyk, who has been looking into the activities of Zinc Nacional since the company proposed opening a plant in his home town of Muncie, Indiana, five years ago, said that such supersacks can easily leach chemicals or metals into the soil.“Where could all this volume come from?” he said. “Why isn’t it being sold? Why is it being stored? Those are my questions.”Other experts said that places where the bags have been stored require further work to make sure no chemical hazards remain.Javier Castro Larragoitia, a research professor of environmental geochemistry at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, said sampling would be needed to know the most appropriate next steps.“If there is a contaminant in the soil, there is always the potential for it to move downward into the subsoil and eventually reach the underground water table,” he said.The three sites in the industrial park where Meremex is located are in the watershed of the Pesquería River, which flows into the Rio Grande.Zinc Nacional’s plant is also near an important watershed, according to Mexican environmental attorney Francisco Javier Camarena Juárez. This, he said, “requires stricter oversight of the situation”.The company said it hired a firm approved by regulators to determine whether there had been contamination from the white bags.But relying on companies to hire their own investigators could be considered a conflict of interest, said Gonzalo García Vargas, a toxicologist at Juárez University.“The community could organize and demand that the study be conducted by independent institutions, possibly a public university,” he said. “That’s what was done in Torreón,” he added, referring to contamination around a notorious lead smelter in that city in northern Mexico.

Waste

Business

Water

Alaska Natives want the US military to clean up its toxic waste

Now they're turning to the UN for help.

In June 1942, Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian islands in Alaska prompted the U.S. military to activate the Alaska territorial guard, an Army reserve made up of volunteers who wanted to help protect the U.S. So many of the volunteers were from Alaska’s Indigenous peoples — Aleut, Inupiak, Yupik, Tlingit, and many others — that the guard was nicknamed the “Eskimo Scouts.” When World War II ended and the reserve force ceased operations in 1947, the U.S. approached the Indigenous Yupik people of Alaska with another ask: Could the Air Force set up “listening posts” on the island of Sivuqaq, also known as St. Lawrence Island, to help with the intelligence gathering needed to win the Cold War? Viola Waghiyi, who is Yupik from Sivuqaq, said the answer was a resounding yes. “Our grandfathers and fathers volunteered for the Alaska territorial guard,” she said. “We were very patriotic.” But that trust was abused, Waghiyi said. The U.S. military eventually abandoned its Air Force and Army bases, leaving the land polluted with toxic chemicals such as fuel, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, that are known as “forever chemicals” because they persist so long in the environment. The contamination was largely due to spilled and leaking fuel from storage tanks and pipes, both above ground and below ground. More chemical waste came from electrical transformers, abandoned metals and 55-gallon drums. Now, Waghiyi is the environmental health and justice program director at the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, an organization dedicated to limiting the effects of toxic substances on Alaska’s residents and environment. Last week, the organization filed a complaint to the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, in partnership with the U.C. Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic. Their complaint calls for the United Nations to investigate how military waste on Sivuqaq continues to violate the rights of the people who live there, such as the right to a clean and healthy environment and Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent to what happens on their land. “By exposing the Yupik people of Sivuqaq to polluted drinking water sources, air, and soil, and by contaminating local native foods; by causing pervasive human exposure to hazardous chemicals through multiple routes; by toxifying the broader ecosystem; and by not cleaning up contamination sufficiently to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers violated human rights long recognized in international law,” the complaint says. This submission from Alaska is part of a larger, global effort to raise awareness of military toxic waste by the United Nations. The U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights is collecting public input on military activities and toxic waste until April 1. The information collected will be used in a report presented to the U.N. General Assembly in October. The two shuttered bases in Sivuqaq, Alaska, are now classified as “formerly used defense,” or FUD, sites, overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and more than $130 million has been spent to remove the contamination. John Budnick, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska, said the cleanup is considered complete but that the agency is reviewing the site every five years “to ensure the selected remedies continue to be protective of human health and the environment.” “We have completed the work at Northeast Cape, but additional follow-up actions may result from the monitoring phase of the Formerly Used Defense Sites Program,” he said. The last site visit occurred last July and an updated review report is expected to be released this summer. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, similarly concluded in 2013 that an additional EPA cleanup wouldn’t significantly differ from what the Army Corps of Engineers is doing and declined to place the sites on the EPA’s list of hazardous waste cleanup priorities. A 2022 study found that so far, federal cleanup efforts have been inadequate. “High levels of persistent organic pollutants and toxic metals continue to leach from the Northeast Cape FUD site despite large-scale remediation that occurred in the early 2000s,” the authors concluded. The persisting pollution has garnered the attention of Alaska’s state Dept. of Environmental Conservation which oversees the cleanup of contaminated sites. Stephanie Buss, contaminated sites program manager at the agency, said her office has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do additional cleanup at Northeast Cape. “These active contaminated sites have not met closure requirements,” she said. The second former base, Gambell, was classified as completed but still lacks land use controls, she noted. “DEC takes community health concerns seriously and will continue to provide oversight of the conditions at its active sites in accordance with the state’s regulatory framework to ensure an appropriate response that protects human health and welfare,” Buss said. That same 2022 study found that 89 percent of the fish around the Northeast Cape base contained mercury exceeding the levels the EPA deemed appropriate for people who rely on subsistence fishing. “All fish sampled near the FUD site exceeded the EPA’s PCB guidelines for cancer risk for unrestricted human consumption,” the researchers further found. Waghiyi said the contamination displaced 130 people, and has left her friends and family with a lasting legacy of illness. “It’s not a matter of if we’ll get cancer, but when,” Waghiyi said. Her father died of cancer. Her mother had a stillborn child. Waghiyi herself is a cancer survivor and has had three miscarriages. “We feel that they have turned their back on us,” Waghiyi said of the U.S. military. “We wanted our lands to be turned back in the same condition when they turned over.” The U.S. military has a long history of contaminating lands and waters through military training and battles sites, including on Indigenous lands. Citizens of the Navajo Nation in Arizona and Yakama Nation in Washington continue to raise concerns about the ongoing effects of military nuclear testing on their lands and health. In the Marshall Islands, fishing around certain atolls is discouraged due to high rates of toxicity due to nuclear testing and other military training. On Guam, chemicals from an active Air Force base have contaminated parts of the islandʻs sole-source aquifer that serves 70% of the population. Last year, a federal report found that climate change threatens to unearth even more U.S. military nuclear waste in both the Marshall Islands and Greenland. In 2021, the Navy in Hawaiʻi poisoned 90,000 people when jet fuel leached from aging, massive underground storage tanks into the drinking water supply after the Navy ignored years of warning to upgrade the tanks or remove the fuel. The federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to remove unexploded ordnance from the island of Kahoʻolawe, a former bombing range in Hawaiʻi, but the island is still considered dangerous to walk on because of the risk of more ordnance unearthing due to extensive erosion. The complaint filed last week by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics calls for the United Nations to write to U.S. federal and state agencies and call upon them to honor a 1951 agreement between the U.S. government and the Sivuqaq Yupik people that prohibited polluting the land. The agreement said that the Sivuqaq Tribes would allow the Air Force to construct surveillance sites to spy on the Soviet Union, but they had four conditions, including allowing Indigenous peoples to continue to hunt, fish and trap where desired and preventing outsiders from killing their game. Finally, the agreement said that “any refuse or garbage will not be dumped in streams or near the beach within the proposed area.” “The import of the agreement was clear: The military must not despoil the island; must protect the resources critical to Indigenous Yupik inhabitants’ sustenance; and must leave the island in the condition they found it, which ensured their health and well-being,” the Alaska Community Action on Toxics wrote in their complaint. “This is a burden we didn’t create,” Waghiyi said. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Alaska Natives want the US military to clean up its toxic waste on Mar 19, 2025.

Waste

Chemicals

Conservation

California regulators want to weaken hazardous waste disposal rules

California environmental regulators are considering rolling back the state's hazardous waste disposal rules, potentially permitting some municipal landfills to accept more contaminated soil from heavily polluted areas.

California environmental regulators are considering rolling back the state’s hazardous waste disposal rules, potentially permitting some municipal landfills to accept more contaminated soil from heavily polluted areas.From lead-acid battery smelters to rocket testing facilities, heavy industry over the past century in California has left large swathes of land imbued with dangerous chemicals. As a result, contaminated soil that has been removed during major environmental cleanups or new construction has typically comprised the largest bloc of hazardous waste in California each year. More than 560,000 tons of toxic dirt are excavated every year on average, according to a 2023 DTSC report.The vast majority of this polluted soil would not qualify as hazardous waste outside of California, because the state has more stringent rules than the federal government. But now the California Department of Toxic Substances Control is recommending loosening the state’s hazardous waste rules for contaminated soil, arguing that many nonhazardous landfills are adequately equipped to accept chemical-laced dirt, according to an unpublished draft plan obtained by The Times.DTSC spokesperson Alysa Pakkidis said the agency is exploring ways to manage California-only hazardous waste “under different standards while still protecting public health and the environment,” as required by a 2021 state law. The agency’s recommendations will be detailed in the state’s first Hazardous Waste Management Plan, a document that is intended to help guide state strategy on potentially dangerous wastes and which the 2021 law requires be published every three years.The law called for the first version to be published by March 1. But as of March 11, it has still not been posted publicly.The DTSC proposal comes as hazardous waste, namely in the form of soil polluted after the recent L.A. wildfires, has become top of mind. Government agencies are facing blistering criticism over their decision to allow untested — and potentially hazardous — wildfire ash and soil to be disposed of in municipal landfills across Southern California.Environmental groups say allowing nonhazardous waste landfills to accept chemical-laced soil would be a grave mistake. By dumping more toxic substances into the landfills, there’s a higher chance of chemicals leaking into groundwater or becoming part of airborne dust blowing into nearby communities.“The reason we established these waste codes was to protect California’s groundwater and public health,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, an environmental nonprofit. “You can see how effectively [the state is] regulating landfills without the hazardous waste. We’re finding vast noncompliance.”California’s more rigorous hazardous waste standards have led to higher costs for industry and government, as under the current rules, contaminated soil must be transported to a specialized hazardous waste facility in California or hauled to landfills in neighboring states.California currently has only two hazardous waste landfills: Kettleman Hills and Buttonwillow, both in San Joaquin Valley. Oftentimes, contaminated soil is taken to nonhazardous landfills in neighboring states that rely on the more lenient federal standards. The average distance driven to dispose of California-designated hazardous soil is about 440 miles, according to a DTSC draft report.“Because there’s only two and they’re kind of far away from everything, it is very expensive to take material there,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento-based environmental nonprofit. “So people are always looking for ways to not take material there, and that has sometimes resulted in people taking material out of state.”The proposed changes would in theory give private industry a larger selection of in-state landfills to which they could send their waste. DTSC argues that this would result in shorter trucking distances, less air pollution and lower costs.But the state could also see cost savings from relaxing its policies. California has been funding the removal and replacement of soil in neighborhoods around the Exide battery plant in Southeast L.A. County — the state’s most expensive cleanup. State contractors are trucking hazardous soil from that site to nonhazardous waste landfills in Utah, Nevada and Arizona — states that rely on the more lenient federal hazardous waste standards.California currently uses three tests to determine whether solid waste is hazardous. One ensures waste doesn’t exceed state-established limits for certain toxic substances when the waste is in a solid form. For example, soil with 1,000 parts per million of lead is considered toxic by the state.The other two tests measure the concentration of toxic substances that seep out of solid waste when it is exposed to an acid. These are intended to simulate how solid waste could release chemicals inside the landfill as it’s exposed to leachate — liquid waste from rainfall or decomposing garbage. One of these tests is based on federally established methods, and the other is based on the stricter California state-established standards.DTSC recommends allowing contaminated soil that fails the state’s leakage test to be dumped at nonhazardous waste landfills, so long as it passes the other two tests. They stressed that hazardous soil would be sent to landfills with liners and leachate collection systems — equipment that gathers and pumps out liquid waste that trickles to the bottom of the dump.Environmental advocates say liner systems can fail when damaged by earthquakes or extreme heat. They argue that sending chemical-laced soil into such systems would eventually imperil groundwater near landfills and could lead to long-term contamination risks.Residents who live near the landfills that are already accepting debris from the Eaton and Palisades wildfires say they are also worried about toxic dust.One of these sites is the Sunshine Canyon Landfill, a 1,036-acre landfill located in a blustery mountain pass in the northeastern San Fernando Valley where gusts often blow dust and odors into nearby communities. The landfill is less than a mile away from a popular recreational area with soccer fields and baseball diamonds.After trucks moved fire debris to the landfill, Erick Fefferman, a resident of nearby Granada Hills, decided against allowing his son to participate in a youth soccer league there this year.“We keep hearing about liners and leachate, but we’re not hearing about wind,” said Erick Fefferman. “Things don’t just sink down — they also get lifted up.”Contaminated soil is allowed to be used as “daily cover,” a layer of material spread over municipal waste to prevent odors and pests. In a November 2024 meeting, when state officials were asked if California-only hazardous soil could be used as a cover, a DTSC representative said “it is a consideration.”California’s hazardous waste laws were first established in 1972 to direct the state to regulate the handling, transportation and disposal of dangerous materials within the state. The state adopted a more rigorous classification system and regulations, including the state leakage test, in the 1980s. Though California’s regulations are among the strictest in the nation, they have been loosened over time.In 2021, for example, the state legislature adopted rules allowing for wood coated with toxic metals like chromium and arsenic to be taken to nonhazardous waste facilities.Contaminated soil could be next. DTSC is working to identify regulatory or statutory avenues that would allow for soil that could be contaminated with heavy metals to be dumped at California landfills. To do so, the agency will need the cooperation of the state Water Resources Board and CalRecycle, which regulate nonhazardous waste landfills. Landfill owners would also need to volunteer to accept contaminated soil, according to the DTSC draft plan.The Board of Environmental Safety, a five-member committee that provides oversight of DTSC, will host a series of public meetings on the state’s hazardous waste plan. The board is scheduled to vote on whether to approve the plan in July.Environmental advocates say the plans will likely face stiff opposition.“If we need more disposal capacity, maybe we should be requiring everybody to have the same standards as a hazardous waste landfill,” said Lapis, the advocacy director for Californians Against Waste. “Deregulation is not the right solution, the fact that they’re even proposing it is kind of crazy to me.”

Waste

Chemicals

Health

Chicken manure can be classified as industrial waste, judge rules

US-style mega-farms in Herefordshire face tough new regulations after high court rulingIndustrial poultry farms face tough new regulations around the disposal of chicken manure after a judge ruled it can be classified as waste and requires a detailed and transparent plan to dispose of it without damaging the environment.The high court ruling means new US-style mega-farms in Herefordshire will have to deal with poultry manure as if it was industrial waste. Continue reading...

Industrial poultry farms face tough new regulations around the disposal of chicken manure after a judge ruled it can be classified as waste and requires a detailed and transparent plan to dispose of it without damaging the environment.The high court ruling means new US-style mega-farms in Herefordshire will have to deal with poultry manure as if it was industrial waste.The ruling has implications for industrial chicken units all over the country. It comes as the English and Welsh governments announced £1m in funding to investigate the devastating pollution of the River Wye, where about 23m chickens are being produced in the river catchment at any one time.The health of the river, which flows for 155 miles from mid-Wales to the Severn estuary in England, has been downgraded by Natural England from “unfavourable-improving” to “unfavourable-declining”, meaning its condition is poor and worsening. Its decline has been linked to intensive chicken farming in the catchment from the spreading of poultry manure, which contains high levels of phosphate, on to fields, which then leaches into the river.Studies have shown 70% of the phosphate in the River Wye catchment comes from agriculture, although not all is chicken-related. One study recommended an 80% reduction in poultry manure in the Wye catchment to protect the river and called for a cut in the overall number of birds and for the exporting of manure out of the area.The high court judgment defining chicken manure as industrial waste came after the National Farmers’ Union challenged waste rules set by Herefordshire council.The NFU said poultry manure should be treated as an agricultural byproduct, not as waste under the waste framework directive.But Mrs Justice Lieven in her ruling said it cannot be assumed that manure will be used in an environmentally safe way. Given the environmental problems caused by chicken manure in the Wye catchment area, she rejected the NFU challenge and said poultry manure amounted to “waste” in law up to the point it was sold or transferred to a third party.The ruling means that new chicken units in Herefordshire will have to provide a detailed plan at the planning application stage to ensure chicken manure can be disposed of safely, including full transparency on the manure’s destination and application.The campaign group River Action, which intervened in the case, said the ruling was a landmark decision that had implications for all new industrial chicken units.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionCharles Watson, the chair of River Action, said: “We believe the ruling clarifies once and for all that the intensive factory production of livestock is clearly an industrial manufacturing process, whereby the often-toxic waste that it produces must be treated as such.”Carol Day of Leigh Day, who acted for River Action, said: “People proposing new intensive poultry units in Herefordshire will need to put in place proper arrangements for dealing with the huge volumes of manure that is produced. The judgment should also now mean that proper environmental controls are put in place across the country to oversee the production and handling of manure from animals on farms.”

Waste

Agriculture

Government

Suggested Viewing

The Divers

Talitha, who works in the non-profit sector, finds ways to make her dollar stretch by dumpster diving* to rescue and reclaim unused food. Director How is a graduate of the prestigious MFA Directing program at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television. *Miriam-Webster: The practice of searching through public trash receptacles for edible food or discarded items that retain some use or value.

Food

Waste

Culture

Cardboard Scavengers

The documentary explores scavenging practices in Laredo, Texas, focusing on the informal transborder recycling on the U.S.-Mexico border. The focus is on a married couple who are cartoneros (cardboard scavengers). Chole and Jose cross the border daily to collect cardboard and then transport it into Mexico to sell. The film depicts the ongoing interdependence of the economies of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo. It introduces audiences to two people who depend on scavenging practices that help both countries' economies and recycling efforts.

Culture

Sustainable

Solutions

Kingdom of Waste

Our garbage accumulates and gives life to a plastic monster. We wish his reign to be short. It is probably time to think over how we produce and consume to pollute less.

Waste

Pollution

Family

Keeper of the Creek

“If you’ve ever thought ‘Someone should do something about that litter problem’, remember, you’re someone.” Joel Goldes has visited the creek in his suburban Southern California community nearly every day. And for the past 10 years, he’s been picking up litter, trapping invasive crayfish, opening blocked channels, and testifying at local hearings – often the lone voice in support of the under-appreciated ecosystem near his home.

Waste

Water

Inspirational

The Heart Whisperer

A childhood discovery inspires a woman to push the boundaries of our compassion in this true story. The esteemed Earthlings creator, Shaun Monson, weaves together archived news clips, never seen before arrest footage, and current interviews to tell this tale that crosses countries and decades. Cameo appearances by Joaquin Phoenix and other famous animal advocates.

Water

Energy

Waste

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