How schools are reducing cafeteria food waste

All right, new here at 6:30 tonight, climate advocates are continuing to raise red flags over food waste, citing its contributions to damaging greenhouse gas emissions. Schools across the country are now making efforts to cut down on what goes to waste. Ted Linder takes a closer look at one school's progress and how teams are hoping similar ideas keep spreading. Federal data reveals more than 30 million lunches are served at public schools across the country every day, with most coming from the Agriculture Department's National School Lunch Program. But according to the World Wildlife Fund, K through 12 schools in the U.S. collectively throw out roughly 530,000 tons of solid food and up to 45 million gallons of milk every year. Besides costing the U.S. an estimated $1.7 billion annually when the food waste heads to landfills, it breaks down and releases methane, a damaging greenhouse gas. A growing number of schools are trying to combat the challenges, like Georgia's Lovin' Elementary, east of Atlanta. It feels like, you know, we're saving the planet. Students with buckets help collect lunch scraps, which head to the school's outdoor compost bin. Every Tuesday, they meet one of our master gardeners out there. We actually use the compost in our steam garden, so we will use it to grow all of our fruits and vegetables that we will plant in the spring. Uneaten salad bits are given to the chickens at their coop. We have 12 hens in our steam garden right now. I love it. And unopened milk is placed in a shared fridge for kids to grab as a snack or take home. In the 2024-25 school year, we collected 3,338 pounds of fruit and vegetable waste. It all comes as the Environmental Protection Agency says food waste makes up roughly 24% of the solid waste sent to landfills in the United States. I'm Ted Lindner. Fox News.