• Some of this food came from footpath gardens
Research shows kerbside food scraps collection increases household food waste and costs
Key conclusions from the research:
food waste diversion, to be effective, needs to be paired with upstream waste diversion strategies; and
the roughly 10% of US municipalities which use pay as you throw pricing for food waste (PAYT) better aligns financial incentives with waste reduction goals.
Pay As You Throw success stories in some 3,000 US towns and cities are described here
The 2025 research analysed how residential food waste diversion programs affect how much food households buy, and how much food they waste: Reducing Waste, Changing Habits: The effect of US Organics Diversion Program on Food Purchases.
Data the authors analysed showed voluntary kerbside organics collection programs increased household food expenditures by an average of $3.58 ($US).
And mandatory programs increased household food expenditures by an average of $5.08 a month up to $8.66 a month, or about 8.2% of average monthly food expenditure in 2020.
The data is from 2004 through to 2024 from 295 US cities with populations over 100,000 and uses NielsenIQ Consumer Panel data. The data compared before and after program implementation and compared control cities without organics programs.
That is, the research looked at how purchasing patterns shifted after a program launched and asked whether shifts were meaningfully different from normal trends elsewhere.
It shows voluntary programme effects emerge slowly and become significant in second and third years while mandatory program effects are sooner.
There are rebound effects. Diversion from landfill reduces methane emissions but there is increased food purchasing showing there are upstream effects on pollution and costs, production, processing and transportation.
The report estimates the additional food demand triggered by mandatory programs creates a $26 billion increase in food loss and waste across the US and almost $714m in added greenhouse damages annually.
The report backs up findings in another report where research showed that when university colleagues were told food waste would be composted they subsequently left more food uneaten than those told it would go to landfill.
This blog content mostly recycles this article.
Michael Mobbs