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Foodservice Composting Crowds Out Consumer Food Waste Reduction Behavior in a Dining Experiment

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  • Danyi Qi
  • Brian E. Roe

Abstract

Many countries strive to reduce food waste, which deprives hungry people of nutrition, depletes resources, and accounts for substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Composting and other food waste recycling technologies that divert food waste from landfills mitigate the environmental damages of food waste disposal and have grown in popularity. We explore whether consumer knowledge that the environmental damage created by their food waste will be mitigated by recycling technologies undermines personal food waste reduction behavior. Subjects in a dining situation are randomly assigned whether or not they receive information about the negative effects of landfilling food waste and whether they are told that uneaten food from the study will be composted or landfilled. We find that providing information about the negative effects of food waste in landfills significantly reduces the total amount of solid food waste created when compared to a control situation that features neither a food waste reduction nor a food waste recycling policy. However, if subjects are also informed that food waste from the study will be composted, the amount of solid food waste generated is significantly greater than if only the food waste reduction policy were implemented. This suggests a crowding out effect or informational rebound effect in which promoting policies that mitigate the environmental damages of food waste may unintentionally undermine policies meant to encourage individual consumer food waste reduction. We discuss key policy implications as well as several limitations of our experimental setting and analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Danyi Qi & Brian E. Roe, 2017. "Foodservice Composting Crowds Out Consumer Food Waste Reduction Behavior in a Dining Experiment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1159-1171.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:99:y:2017:i:5:p:1159-1171.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aax050
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    Cited by:

    1. Min, Shi & Wang, Xiaobing & Yu, Xiaohua, 2021. "Does dietary knowledge affect household food waste in the developing economy of China?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Brian E. Roe, 2021. "Progress and Challenges in Empirical Food Waste Research: A Commentary on “Estimating Food Waste as Household Production Inefficiency,” and “Household Food Waste and Inefficiencies in Food Production”," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(1), pages 22-25, January.
    3. Qi, Danyi & Li, Ran & Penn, Jerrod & Houghtaling, Bailey & Prinyawiwatkul, Witoon & Roe, Brian E., 2021. "Does Nudging More Vegetable Consumption Result in More Waste? Evidence from a Randomized Dining Experiment," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 313980, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Karen Page Winterich & Rebecca Walker Reczek & Tamar Makov, 2024. "How lack of knowledge on emissions and psychological biases deter consumers from taking effective action to mitigate climate change," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(5), pages 1475-1494, October.
    5. Dusoruth, Vaneesha, 2018. "Household Food Waste Generation and Organics Recycling: Too Time Consuming or for the Better [Public] Good?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274132, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Lingfei Wang & Yuqin Yang & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "The Clean Your Plate Campaign: Resisting Table Food Waste in an Unstable World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    7. Alba J. Collart & Matthew G. Interis, 2018. "Consumer Imperfect Information in the Market for Expired and Nearly Expired Foods and Implications for Reducing Food Waste," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, October.
    8. Sanghyo Kim & Sang Hyeon Lee, 2020. "Examining Household Food Waste Behaviors and the Determinants in Korea Using New Questions in a National Household Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-24, October.
    9. Vaneesha Dusoruth & Hikaru Hanawa Peterson, 2020. "Food waste tendencies: Behavioral response to cosmetic deterioration of food," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-22, May.
    10. Myung Ja Kim & C. Michael Hall, 2019. "Can Climate Change Awareness Predict Pro-Environmental Practices in Restaurants? Comparing High and Low Dining Expenditure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-20, November.
    11. Zhang, Yu & Qi, Danyi, 2020. "How Households Waste Food at Home: Estimating Household Food Waste in a Dynamic Decision Model under Uncertainty," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304631, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. G Tassinari & S Boccaletti & C Soregaroli, 2023. "Recycling sludge in agriculture? Assessing sustainability of nutrient recovery in Italy," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 50(5), pages 1633-1658.
    13. Qi, Danyi & Li, Ran & Penn, Jerrod & Houghtaling, Bailey & Prinyawiwatkul, Witoon & Roe, Brian E., 2022. "Nudging greater vegetable intake and less food waste: A field experiment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    14. Arjen van Lin & Aylin Aydinli & Marco Bertini & Erica van Herpen & Julia von Schuckmann & Bernd H Schmitt & Manoj Thomas, 2023. "Does Cash Really Mean Trash? An Empirical Investigation into the Effect of Retailer Price Promotions on Household Food Waste," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 50(4), pages 663-682.
    15. Yu Zhang & Danyi Qi, 2024. "How to reduce household food waste during and after the COVID‐19 lockdown? Evidence from a structural model," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 68(3), pages 628-652, July.
    16. Reynolds, Christian & Goucher, Liam & Quested, Tom & Bromley, Sarah & Gillick, Sam & Wells, Victoria K. & Evans, David & Koh, Lenny & Carlsson Kanyama, Annika & Katzeff, Cecilia & Svenfelt, Åsa & Jack, 2019. "Review: Consumption-stage food waste reduction interventions – What works and how to design better interventions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 7-27.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food waste; composting; rebound effects; supply chain; policy; economic experiments; crowd-out effect; single-action bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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