Stacks of scones laid at the bottom of a trash can, tossed by a coffee shop employee at closing time because of expired shelf life.

Raw poultry and produce topped a pile of trash in a kitchen garbage can.

An estimated one-third of the food produced for human consumption worldwide — about 1.3 billion tons — gets lost or wasted each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated this country produced 133 billion pounds of food waste, a net worth of $161 billion, in 2010.

As part of a food waste challenge, the USDA calls on food chains to reduce food waste by improving storage and cooking methods, recovering food waste by connecting with hunger relief organizations like food banks and recycling food waste to feed animals or create compost, among other suggestions.

From 1950s into the early 1980s, Altoona was “cutting edge” in recycling with its separate organic materials collection, according to John Frederick, Intermunicipal Relations Committee executive director.

He said residents would wrap compost in newspapers and butcher paper and place the compost in steel cans. But a requirement to buy new collection trucks under Ronald Reagan’s administration ended the compost program due to lack of funding.

Compost, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency, is organic material consisting of food scraps and yard waste, that can be added to soil to help plants grow.

Composting requires brown materials such as dead leaves or branches, green materials like grass clippings or vegetable waste, and water.

The EPA states making compost keeps these materials out of landfills and can reduce the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Now, more than 30 years later, the IRC is trying to bring back composting.

“I’ve often said I think in the last 25 years we’ve made a transition from a society that has been one based on consumption and disposal to one that is more and more transitioning to a society which realizes that our trash has value,” Frederick said.

“I think it’s part of our transition to even take organic waste and make it into something that is actually valuable and worth using for other things.”

The IRC received a grant in 2017 for compost research and conducted a pilot study involving the Hollidaysburg Area High School and Prime Sirloin Buffet in Duncansville from February to April of this year.

The high school accumulated about 1,000 pounds of food in about seven weeks, according to the IRC’s food waste report. More than 26,000 pounds of food waste was collected from Prime Sirloin Buffet in a little over a month.

Both the high school and the restaurant were provided with 35-gallon containers for compost. IRC staff members then brought the food waste to its Buckhorn yard waste facility and dumped it into a food pit lined with depressions.

The waste, mixed with a bed of mulch, was incorporated into rows. With the rows covered, the mix of mulch and food waste would compost, fueled by the release of nitrogen and carbon.

Frederick expressed starting a food waste composting program with businesses and institutions would be a challenging effort, requiring changes in fundamental mindsets of handling trash.

“There is a recycling ethic that has been built, a recycling tradition that’s been built in many businesses but certainly not in all. And this would be, on one hand, a natural extension of that ethic that’s already been established in some businesses,” he said. “But we still have trouble getting businesses to recycle what they’ve been required to recycle for 25 years. Now we are talking about recovering food waste. That will be a big step for some businesses, institutions and establishments.”

Reducing food waste

With close to 27,000 pounds of food waste, Don Delozier, owner of Prime Sirloin Buffet, said the amount accumulated was surprising.

“I think we overwhelmed them. They did not think we could generate that much food waste,” Delozier said of IRC staff who participated in the pilot study. “More people need to be more environmentally conscious.”

To help reduce food waste, restaurant manager Jason Ratchford said the Prime Sirloin staff tries to track food and prepare less food during slow periods. He added the restaurant staff will use leftover food for other things such as leftover dinner rolls as bread crumbs for meatloaf.

Challenges to food waste composting include the time it takes to sort compost material from trash and the added expenses for compost collection, according to Delozier.

Delozier added the IRC needs to establish a fee for composting and commented on how he doesn’t want to pay double for waste management and composting. He said he would pay a little extra for a food compost fee, but suggested a reduction in the trash hauling fee.

Derrick Carpenter, co-founder of Dn’D Family Farms The Smoky Pig, said he cannot afford to waste food as a small-scale restaurant owner.

“I think the first thing you have to keep in mind is how we are so very different from any large-scale restaurant,” Carpenter said. “At the end of the day, I have to be at a point where I am zero wastage. I really have to be. I can’t justify any, particularly on the meats for sure.”

“We’re making smaller volumes and making more often because we are smaller scale and doing significantly less business than some of your larger restaurants. That’s just where we fit in that equation,” he added.

The Smoky Pig staff makes smaller volumes of food and will then scramble to make more food if supply is running low or out. Carpenter and his wife, Dessie, opened the restaurant in June. They were mostly selling their food at large events and farmers’ markets prior to that.

“You don’t know on a daily basis what you’re going to need,” Carpenter said. “This being our first wintertime season with this place open, we’re going to have some learning to do.”

Carpenter anticipates needing two years of business to assess trends of sales.

To keep tabs on what is sold, Carpenter added he uses a Square card reader to track products and meals sold. While the Square card reader automatically tracks card payments, cash payments are entered manually into the system.

He and the restaurant staff have made dog treats using less popular parts of the meat such as entrails to help reduce waste. The staff also plans on packaging leftovers, freezing it and selling them as individual frozen meals for customers.

“It truly is a shame, and it shouldn’t have to happen,” Carpenter said of food waste.

Aside from hot foods, there are also local efforts to not waste canned goods.

Sister Paula DelGrosso, founder of the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, said it accepts donations of prepackaged goods and produce, among other items.

DelGrosso estimates 150 to 200 people eat at the soup kitchen each day it’s opened.

“Nobody likes to see stuff thrown out,” she said.

“We don’t have control over what restaurants or what other people do. We don’t have control over what people do with their leftover foods,” DelGrosso added, commenting about educating people on alternatives to throwing food out. “It could be used to help people, but it has to be done correctly and properly and safely.”

Looking ahead

To implement and expand food composting, Frederick said the IRC needs to figure out costs for customers and discuss logistics with waste haulers. A food waste composting program will require investments in time and manpower, he added.

But the IRC believes a food waste composting program in Blair County is a “feasible prospect,” as stated in its report.

Businesses and institutions would either have to clean the compost bins themselves or use a cheaper alternative to biodegradable bags.

The IRC is considering outsourcing food waste collection to local trash haulers who have the infrastructure for waste pickup. Another issue the IRC will need to take into account is contamination of compost from participating entities.

“From an environmental perspective, we hope that we can tackle a wider spread effort. One of the things we’ve learned, or has been confirmed, is that we have to do it in an incremental way, that we have to take it — to use the old metaphor — a bite at a time so we don’t choke on it,” Frederick said. “Take it a step at a time and see what can work and what we can do.”

Future hopes and plans for local food waste composting will be discussed at the IRC board meeting at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 27 on the top floor of Altoona City Hall.

Mirror Staff Writer Shen Wu Tan is at 946-7457.