Grantee Research Project Results

Design optimal food rescue networks for environmental sustainability and nutritional equity

EPA Grant Number: SU841131
Title: Design optimal food rescue networks for environmental sustainability and nutritional equity
Investigators: Romeiko, Xiaobo
Institution: The State University of New York at Albany
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: I
Project Period: March 1, 2025 through February 28, 2027
Project Amount: $74,998
RFA: 21st Annual P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet Phase I (2024) RFA Text
Research Category: Health Effects , Food Waste , Human Health , Land and Waste Management , P3 Awards , P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Environment

Description:

Three sequential research tasks, and integrative education and community outreach activities are planned to address the project goal. For Task 1, the team will quantify the environmental health impacts of food rescue networks, by updating the integrated life cycle and nutritional assessment. As follows in Task 2, the team will identify the optimal food rescue networks capable of maximizing environmental health benefits and minimizing costs by constructing and solving multi-objective optimization models. Based upon the two aforementioned tasks, the team will create an innovative visualization tool in Task 3 to aid in the design, evaluation and adoption of environmentally sustainable, nutritionally equitable and cost-effective food rescue networks. The team will work closely with emergency food organizations to test, improve and disseminate this visualization tool. Lastly, the project provides hands-on training experiences for the next generation scientists, engineers and practitioners. The team will also develop an on-line course module to disseminate the project findings to national and international audiences.

Objective:

Approximate 30~40% the food produced in the United States (US) is wasted. Yet, one in eight households in the US experience food insecurity. Wasted food is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the US, comprising 24 and 22% of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste, respectively. Wasted food is linked with natural resources depletion and a range of environmental issues. The annual economic loss associated with wasted food is estimated to be $218 billion in the US, equaling to 1.3% of GDP. In fact, about 20~50% of wasted food is edible, nutritious and appropriate for human consumption. Food rescue, which diverts edible wasted food from landfill to food insecure population, is capable of simultaneously reducing food waste, alleviating food insecurity, and strengthening health equity. Food rescue ranks as the second most preferred pathway in US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s wasted food scale. Food rescue plays critical roles in addressing food security and mitigating diet-related chronic diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome for the food insecure populations, who chronically rely on rescued food as fruit, vegetable and protein sources. Increased numbers of national and state policies are promoting food rescue due to its significance in wasted food reduction, environmental sustainability and nutritional security. However, only approximately 2% of wasted food is rescued and diverted to hungry population to date. A grand challenge limiting food rescue is the lack of scientific assessment and association tools, which are capable of designing environmentally sustainable, cost effective and nutritionally equitable food rescue networks. To address this challenge, the goal of this project is to design food rescue networks capable of simultaneously minimizing costs and maximizing environmental sustainability and nutritional equity benefits.

Expected Results:

The project has three expected deliverables, which will propel the achievement of food waste reduction, environmental sustainability, economic prosperity and societal equity. Task 1 yields the innovative understanding of environmental health impacts of food donation systems in the US. Task 2 identifies the optimal food rescue networks for environmental sustainability and nutritional equity. Task 3 produces an interactive user-friendly tool for visualizing the environmental health impacts of food rescue systems, and to identify the optimal food rescue networks. These outputs fill in the three critical knowledge gaps: 1) the lack of assessment on the environmental health impacts of food rescue systems in the US; 2) the incapability of identifying the optimal food rescue systems for maximizing the environmental, economic and health benefits; and 3) the lack of a decision support tool for emergency food organizations and policy makers to design and implement the effective, sustainable and equitable food rescue systems.

Supplemental Keywords:

food waste, life cycle assessment, circular design, optimization, visualization, health, equity