Environmental cost of food wastage: Integrated response through a mix of environmental policy instruments

Food, when wasted, reaches landfills and emits greenhouse gases. The impact of greenhouse gases (GHGs), in turn, is felt by even those who do not waste food in the place. Externalities thus created are known to distort market efficiency and the most widely discussed externality is climate change. This study takes the case of United States of America (USA) to ascertain the GHGs resulting due to food wastage. The difference between cost per capita due to emissions from animal‐based products and emissions from plant‐based products comes out to be $122. In the year 1997 total GHG emission for the entire population of the USA due to food wastage was 401.98 billion kgCO2eq, costing the country 45.42 billion US dollars. Two decades later, in 2017, the food waste costs went up by 6 billion US dollars amounting to 51.14 billion US dollars and 452.64 billion kgCO2eq of GHG emissions The novelty of this research lies in highlighting the carbon footprints of food wastage in terms of GHG's and monetizing these emissions. The study proposes an integrated response through a mix of environmental policy instruments of economic incentives, command and control and moral suasion.