Unit 4: Food and Sustainability

Food waste is a global problem, and in the U.S. we waste an estimated 103 million pounds of food a year. Wasted food means wasted land resources (about 30% of all agricultural land), energy and water, and contributes to environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions.

In modern wastewater treatment plants, waste is converted to carbon dioxide and water is cleaned. Yet billions of people around the world, including 1.4 million in the U.S., don’t have access to safe, sustainable sanitation and many (mostly children) die from related diseases.

You might not realize sweet potatoes come in all sorts of cool shapes and sizes. So why when you go to the grocery store, do they look all alike? Did you know how much power there is in corn? Computer programming, food and farmers actually have a lot in common.

How is NC State working to reduce food waste entering the landfill?

In this talk, NC State’s compost facility operator Matt Ball will dive into how compost is made at NC State, the challenges that come along with organics recycling and how compost is utilized across campus.

The current system to manage phosphorus is extremely inefficient. One major reason relates to the loss of phosphorus from the food chain, where it can transfer to animal wastes and run-off, which can lead to water pollution, algal blooms, eutrophication and fish kills.