What Are the Environmental Benefits and Costs of Reducing Food Waste? Bristol as a Case Study in the WASTE FEW Urban Living Lab Project

Eleanor Eaton, Alistair Hunt, Anastasia Di Leo, Daniel Black, Gwen Frost and Sarah Hargreaves
Additional contact information
Eleanor Eaton: Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
Alistair Hunt: Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
Anastasia Di Leo: Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
Daniel Black: Daniel Black + Associates|db + a, Bristol BS7 9AZ, UK
Gwen Frost: Bristol Waste Company, Bristol BS2 0XS, UK
Sarah Hargreaves: Resource Futures, Bristol BS1 6XN, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: The city of Bristol currently generates around 48,000 tonnes of household food waste every year. This waste incurs loss of resources and environmental damage throughout the food cycle. In this paper we quantify and value the baseline socio-environmental impacts from household food waste in Bristol before examining the potential costs and benefits that may result from changes to food waste behaviour. In so doing, we look to better inform the choice of food waste reduction methods in public policy. The environmental impacts of two possible policy targets are explored: (1) a 20% increase in food waste recycling and (2) an overall decrease in food waste of 20%. Environmental impacts are estimated for 13 different hazards, including Global Warming Potential, Particulate Matter, Human Toxicity and Water Depletion. The societal consequences of these environmental changes are monetised using non-market values which allows us to directly compare the relative importance of different environmental impacts and the trade-offs between these impacts in each scenario. For example, we estimate that the Global Warming Potential of Bristol’s annual food waste equates to around 110,000 tonnes CO 2 , or 25,000 additional cars on the road every year. We find that a 20% improvement in recycling behaviour would lead to an annual reduction of 113 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent, whilst a 20% reduction in food waste would result in an annual reduction of 15,000 tonnes CO 2 equivalent. Findings suggest that the environmental impact of waste management is significantly overshadowed by the impact of resources used in food production and distribution before it becomes waste.

Keywords: food–energy–water nexus; food waste; resource efficiency; non-market valuation; environmental economics; urban living lab; waste management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5573/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5573/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:9:p:5573-:d:809384

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().