SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Today, millions of Americans are enjoying a whole lot of food, but Thanksgiving can also mean a lot of food waste, which is a major contributor to climate change. NPR's Jaclyn Diaz visited one facility in New York that is trying to address the issue in a sustainable way.
JACLYN DIAZ, BYLINE: In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, people rush to get what they need for their holiday feasts. But while the holiday season means meals with loved ones, it could also mean lots of food waste.
TED JAENICKE: You want to give people all sorts of options to eat, and I think this behavioral tendency to cook more than we truly need is also part of Thanksgiving.
DIAZ: Ted Jaenicke is a professor at Penn State who studies food waste, and he says what we throw out has big implications.
JAENICKE: Around the globe, if food waste were its own country, then it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
DIAZ: That's because food in landfills piles up, breaks down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas.
JAENICKE: And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
DIAZ: And that's of particular concern around the holidays. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, says Thanksgiving is the biggest day for food waste in the U.S. But the Staten Island Compost Facility is handling this problem on a massive scale. Back in the spring, New York City made composting mandatory for residents.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON, BYLINE: How would you describe the composting process?
JENNIFER MCDONNELL: It's basically a bunch of tiny microorganisms, invertebrates, bacteria that are converting the organic material.
DIAZ: Jennifer McDonnell is the deputy commissioner for solid waste management at the New York City Department of Sanitation.
MCDONNELL: So they're metabolizing, they're growing, dying, eating, excreting. And that's really the active biological conversion process. And what it does is it...
DIAZ: Letting food break down in this way produces fewer carbon emissions, and there's reason to believe it's better for local communities, too.
MCDONNELL: And for other facilities, like incinerators, there are concerns about the impacts from air emissions, even landfill concerns about air emissions on local communities.
DIAZ: Despite the benefits, municipal compost sites like this are not the norm, according to Jaenicke, the food waste scholar.
JAENICKE: I wish there was a coordinated effort, but it's a total patchwork of city, state and private sector.
DIAZ: It's really hard for cities to implement compost programs. One major challenge is infrastructure - having the space and equipment to do this work. Another challenge is education. McDonnell says it's taken a lot of work to get participation in New York's program to close to 10%.
MCDONNELL: It takes about 10 years to mature to get to a participation rate. It really is about behavior change, right?
DIAZ: And that's tough.
MCDONNELL: The larger nugget, perhaps, is, again, getting people comfortable with separating food waste, right? Like, how do I do that in my kitchen? When do I take it out to the collection point?
DIAZ: She says it's about changing minds and behavior.
MCDONNELL: In our culture, where we produce so much waste from just existing, we have to be thoughtful about how to have a long-term, sustainable approach to properly managing all those things.
DIAZ: It's a lot of work, but she says well worth the effort. Jaclyn Diaz, NPR News.
DETROW: NPR's Alana Wise contributed to this reporting. You can find photos from their visit to the Staten Island Compost Facility at npr.org.
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