Food waste recycling in the USA can reduce climate and nutrient pollution impacts yet risks plastic accumulation in soils.

Katherine K Porterfield, Micayla N Schambura, Eric D Roy

Abstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Nature food, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

1citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

Food waste recycling shifts burdens from climate to soil.Nature food · 2026
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Katherine K PorterfieldClimate Measurements Center of Excellence, Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA. kporterf@uvm.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0272-9992

Micayla N SchamburaDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.

Eric D RoyClimate Measurements Center of Excellence, Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Diverting food waste to composting and anaerobic digestion can reduce landfill methane emissions and contribute towards a circular bioeconomy, but trade-offs can be incurred from nutrient loading to aquatic ecosystems and contamination from plastic packaging. Here we used mass balance modelling and life cycle assessment to compare the climate, nutrient loading and plastic pollution impacts of current landfill-dominant US food waste management with hypothetical organics recycling scenarios. We estimate that nationwide implementation of organics recycling could reduce the climate impact of US food waste management by 89-99%, and associated nitrogen and phosphorus loading to downstream waterways by 49-54% and 78-98%, respectively, relative to current landfill-dominant practices. However, land application of food waste-derived composts and digestates would offset <2% of US mineral nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer consumption annually and, without innovations in food packaging design, could discharge ~20,000 t of plastic to US agricultural soils each year.

Indexed as

Environmental PollutionPlasticsRecyclingSoilSoil PollutantsClimateCompostingFertilizersFood Loss and WasteNitrogenNutrientsPhosphorusUnited StatesFertilizersFood Loss and WasteNitrogenPhosphorusPlasticsSoilSoil Pollutants

Identifiers

PMID42493604

DOI10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.140000

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.