Amherst by the Numbers
This is how many times per week USA Waste collects Amherst's trash.
What is twice a week?
Every pickup is a diesel-truck trip, and trash service was Amherst's single biggest waste contract in FY25, at $178,000. Less waste in the dumpster means less hauling.
Instead of paper cups, plastic forks, and disposable plates, the Green Office Guide encourages offices to stock breakrooms with these.
What is reusable kitchenware?
Disposable plates and cutlery get used for minutes just to be thrown out. A drawer of real dishes in the breakroom cuts that trash every single day.
Among common protein sources, this food has the largest greenhouse gas footprint
What is beef?
On average, producing beef generates 50 kg of CO2 per 100g of protein, compared with about 6kg for chicken and 2kg for tofu. Swapping even a few beef meals a week really can make a dent.
At an all-you-can-eat dining hall, the easiest food-waste fix is to start with this, since you can always go back for seconds.
What is a smaller portion?
Most of the food Amherst disposes of comes from dining. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization specifically recommends smaller servings and using leftovers as ways people in wealthy countries can cut waste.
Food that rots in a landfill releases this potent greenhouse gas.
What is Methane?
Methane traps about 28 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a century. In a landfill, food is buried without oxygen, so it breaks down into methane instead of CO2. Food decays so fast that most of that methane escapes before landfill gas-capture systems are even installed. The EPA estimates landfilled food causes about 58% of the methane leaking from U.S. landfills.
During this month, Amherst disposed of about 30 tons of food waste. That was its busiest month of the year so far, and nearly four times as much as its lightest month.
What is April?
Hosting an event with food? You can request these from Facilities for the day so leftovers and scraps don't end up in the trash.
What are compost bins?
Food scraps in the trash end up in a landfill, where they release methane. A compost bin at the snack table keeps them out.
The climate research group Project Drawdown ranks reducing food waste and eating this kind of diet among the most powerful climate solutions on Earth, ahead of rooftop solar.
What is a plant-rich diet?
Both of these food-related solutions are things everyone can start with at their next meal at no cost.
Unlike "use by," this common date label usually refers to peak quality, not safety.
What is "best by" (or "best if used by")?
Date labels aren't required by federal law, and most refer to flavor rather than safety. Tossing food the day the label passes wastes perfectly good food.
The USDA estimates that roughly this share of the U.S. food supply goes to waste.
What is 30 to 40 percent (about one-third)?
That's around 133 billion pounds of food a year, and all the water, land, fuel, and labor used to grow it are wasted too. The average family of four loses about $1,500 a year to uneaten food.
In FY25, Amherst spent approximately this much money on hauling and disposal fees for food waste (compost)
What is $33,000
An event where 100% of the products used are reusable or compostable earns this label.
What is a zero-waste event?
Events are where offices make the most waste in one sitting. Therefore, planning for zero waste from the start significantly reduces waste.
Buying food grown nearby and in season, like Pioneer Valley apples in the fall, is called eating this way.
What is eating local and seasonal?
This habit supports Valley farms and gets you fresher food. It also significantly reduces the emissions associated with transporting the food we consume.
Keeping your fridge at or below this temperature helps food stay fresh and safe longer.
What is 40°F?
Between 40°F and 140°F is the "danger zone," where some bacteria can double in about 20 minutes. A cold enough fridge means food lasts until you actually eat it.
Food is the single most common material in U.S. landfills, making up about this percentage of everything landfilled.
What is about 24 percent (roughly one-quarter)?
Food beats out plastics, paper, and everything else. Because it rots fastest, it's also the biggest driver of landfill methane, so cutting food waste is the quickest way to shrink a landfill's climate impact.
Facilities staff spent about this many hours a year handling Amherst’s food waste.
What is about 312 hours?
The Green Office Checklist asks that at least this share of the catered food at office meetings be vegetarian or vegan.
What is 50%?
Plant-based options generally have a much smaller environmental footprint than meat, especially beef. Ordering half-veggie is one of the easiest ways to significantly reduce a meeting’s carbon footprint.
Turning food that would be wasted into a brand-new food product is called this. An example is crackers made from leftover brewing grain.
What is upcycling?
Upcycling is one of the most preferred pathways because it keeps food in the human food supply and avoids wasting the resources used to produce it. Look for “upcycled” labels at the grocery store.
This four-letter rule for stocking a fridge means moving older food to the front and putting new groceries behind it.
What is FIFO (First In, First Out)?
Restaurants and food banks use FIFO so nothing gets forgotten in the back until it spoils. It works the same way in a shared office fridge.
If all the world's wasted food were its own country, it would rank this place among the world's greenhouse gas emitters.
What is third?
The UN estimated wasted food's footprint at about 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent a year. That puts food waste just behind China and the U.S. and in the same league as entire national economies.
Over the months tracked so far this year, Amherst disposed of about 152 tons of food waste, but donated only about this many tons
What is about 9 tons?
That's roughly 6 pounds donated for every 100 thrown out. The EPA ranks donating as one of the best things to do with extra food because it actually feeds people.
Placing compost and recycling bins right next to trash bins, with clear signs, helps prevent this, which the Green Office Guide calls a major barrier to effective composting and recycling.
What is contamination?
When plastic wrap or a coffee cup lands in the compost, it can ruin the batch. A good bin setup means less confusion and that the food scraps you sort actually get composted.
In a comparison of 211 foods, these two kitchen staples had the lowest greenhouse gas emissions.
What are potatoes and onions?
Apples and bananas give off this gas, which speeds up ripening in nearby produce, so it's smart to store them separately.
What is ethylene?
Leafy greens, broccoli, and cucumbers stored next to apples or bananas can wilt and spoil days early. A little separation means less produce in the trash.
Massachusetts bans institutions, including colleges, that generate at least this much food waste per week from throwing it in the trash.
What is half a ton?
The ban started in 2014 at 1 ton per week and was tightened to 0.5 tons in November 2022. It's why Amherst pays to compost and digest its food waste. A 2024 study in Science found Massachusetts is the only state where a food-waste ban measurably cut landfilled food.