Beyond Prevention: Recycling Food Loss and Waste as a Climate and Resource Imperative

Food loss and waste (FLW) is a defining inefficiency of the global food system, with far-reaching implications for food security, climate change, and resource and environmental sustainability. In this Perspective, we review evidence from global assessments to indicate that FLW levels have not declined meaningfully despite a decade of focus on Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to halve per capita FLW by 2030. Experience from leading countries suggests that structural constraints limit achievable reductions through prevention alone. As near-term climate mitigation windows narrow, strategies beyond prevention are required. We argue that eliminating landfill and open-dump disposal of food waste represents an immediate and scalable mitigation opportunity, because systems-based evidence demonstrates that mature recycling pathways – including composting, anaerobic digestion, and repurposing food waste as animal feed – can deliver emissions reductions of approximately 900–1150 kg CO₂e per metric ton of food waste while recovering nutrients and sparing energy and land resources. We introduce a best-use framework that allocates FLW streams across recycling options based on emission mitigation potential, resource recovery, and implementation feasibility. Reframing food waste management from a prevention-dominated paradigm toward a landfill-avoidance and recycling-optimization paradigm provides a pragmatic path for near-term emissions abatement while advancing long-term sustainability objectives.