Diners not concerned about food waste when it goes to compost

Diners waste far less food when they understand the implications of their actions, but a new study found that if they know the food is going to be composted instead of dumped in a landfill, they aren’t as concerned. When composting enters the picture, educated diners waste just as much as those who haven’t learned about the consequences of food waste. This presents a tricky situation for policy-makers figuring out how to manage food waste, because the top tactics are prevention (through education) and diversion (through composting), said lead researcher Danyi Qi, a graduate student in agricultural economics at The Ohio State University. “When you do both, they cancel each other out; they work at cross-purposes,” said Qi, who is presenting the findings this week at the annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations in Chicago, Ill.