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Supermarket bargains and food waste

September 3, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Food waste is a major global problem. The UN estimates that one third of all food goes to waste. Apart from the fact that this is happening in a world where many people don’t have enough to eat, food waste is both an economic and a climate problem.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Southern Methodist University investigated how different types of grocery sales strategies affect people’s shopping and food waste. The result was that bulk offers increase food sales by nearly 20%, but they also lead to increased food waste in people’s homes.

The study analyzed over 43,000 purchases of fresh vegetables in eight Swedish supermarkets. When customers were offered “two-fer” offers, they bought significantly more than when only single items were available. The attraction of a special offer can be strong. But, according to a follow-up survey, food from bulk offers ended up in the trash more often. People thought they were saving money, but often ended up buying more than they can eat.

The researchers tested two strategies for reducing overbuying. One was to make the actual savings explicit by displaying the regular price next to the offer. The second was to put a friendly reminder on the offer sign along the lines of “I’d love to come home with you if you eat me.” Both of these approaches resulted in reduced sales of 9-11% compared to the original volume offer despite the sale price remaining the same.

Clearly, small changes in marketing can make a big difference. Supermarkets play a big role in the occurrence of food waste and they have the ability to help nudge consumers into better behavior.

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Good deals – bad for the climate: Supermarket volume discounts lead to food waste

Photo, posted November 13, 2006, courtesy of Josh Hallett via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Shrinking coal and the gas trap

August 8, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

An important part of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is reducing the use of coal to produce electricity. Coal is the dirtiest fuel in common use and not burning it is a way to greatly reduce emissions. Ten years later, coal consumption around the world has decreased dramatically.

The most convenient alternative to coal is natural gas, which is still a fossil fuel, but one that releases less carbon than coal. As a result, around the world many countries have increasingly switched from coal to natural gas.

While the switch is a step in the right direction, it is also one that comes with an unintended consequence. Economists at Stanford University have found that natural gas exports by countries have the effect of discouraging investments in renewable energy. Over the long term, the result is increases in carbon emissions. The Stanford researchers refer to this situation as ‘the gas trap’.

As a result of the gas trap, even countries that are very concerned about climate change and want to take action by abandoning the use of coal may end up reducing their investments in renewables and, ultimately, producing more emissions.

This problem comes about because replacing fossil fuels with renewables requires large investments and can take years before the renewables can fully compete with coal. Natural gas, as a “transition fuel” gives countries time to develop renewable solutions. But natural gas producers keep providing large amounts of their product at attractive prices so that customers buy more and more of it rather than investing in renewables. The gas trap isn’t permanent or inevitable, but it is currently a problem.

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How the rush to quit coal is fueling a new ‘gas trap’

Photo, posted February 7, 2017, courtesy of Christian Collins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Neighborhood geothermal energy

December 30, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Residential geothermal energy makes use of the constant, year-round temperature of the earth below the surface to efficiently provide both heating and cooling for a home. In the summer, the cool earth beneath a house sits at about 55 degrees and can be tapped into with a heat pump to provide cooling. In the winter, that 55-degree underground expanse provides a much warmer source of air to heat instead of the often freezing-cold air outside. Geothermal systems are appealing because they use far less energy than other sources of heating and cooling.

Using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings is nothing new. But after years of planning and months of drilling into the ground, the first neighborhood-scale geothermal heating and cooling project has come online in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The project ties together 31 residential and five commercial buildings that share the underground infrastructure needed to heat and cool them. This sort of shared geothermal system has previously been used on college campuses and similar places, but never before across a neighborhood in the United States.

The $14 million project, built by Eversource, broke ground in June 2023, and comprises 90 boreholes or wells drilled 600-700 feet underground. Approximately 135 customers are connected to the system, including low- and moderate-income customers, apartment buildings, a gas station, and a kitchen cabinet showroom.

A total of 13 states, including Massachusetts and New York, are considering pilot projects or advancing legislation that would allow gas utilities to develop networked geothermal heating and cooling.

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First-in-the-Nation Geothermal Heating and Cooling System Comes to Massachusetts

Photo, posted September 30, 2019, courtesy of Stephen D. Strowes via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Reducing emissions from cement

November 14, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Cement production accounts for about 7% of global carbon emissions. It is one of the most difficult challenges for emissions reduction. The emissions associated with producing cement come from both the energy used to provide heat for the process and from the chemical reactions that take place in the formation of cement. Cement is an essential building block of society, and its use is not expected to decline over time.

A German company called Heidelberg Materials is embarking on an ambitious project to reduce carbon emissions from a cement plant in Norway. They are building a facility to use absorbent chemicals to capture large quantities of carbon dioxide emitted through cement production. More than half a ton of carbon dioxide arises from every ton of cement produced at the plant.

Once the carbon dioxide is captured it will be chilled to a liquid, loaded onto ships, and carried to a terminal farther up the Norwegian coast. From there, it will be pumped into undersea rocks located 70 miles offshore and a mile and a half below the bottom of the North Sea.

With all of this complicated process going on, cement from the plant is likely to be quite expensive. It might even be two or three times the price of ordinary cement. Heidelberg Materials is counting on customers’ willingness to pay much more for cement that comes with green credentials.

Can this be economically viable? Heidelberg estimates that cement accounts for only about 2% of the cost of a large building project but as much as 50% of the emissions. As a result, using carbon-free cement could be a relatively inexpensive way for builders to reduce emissions.

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Cement Is a Big Polluter. A Plant in Norway Hopes to Clean It Up.

Photo, posted May 7, 2016, courtesy of Phillip Pessar via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

One in five cars will be electric this year

February 12, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There has been lots of turbulence in the electric car industry of late. Part of it is aggressive publicity campaigns spreading misinformation and part of it is the natural fits and starts associated with major change. But apart from the ups and downs of individual companies and countries, analysts are projecting another record year for the sales of electric vehicles and are expecting that plug-in cars will account for 20% of all car sales globally. Much of the growth will be driven by China, where 38% of new car sales will be electric cars.

Global sales of plug-in cars are expected to grow by 21% this year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Total projected sales are 16.7 million cars, including 1.9 million in the U.S., 3.4 million in Europe, and 9.7 million in China. Because of the rapid adoption of electric cars in China, that country is expected to reach peak gasoline demand this year. In other words, the use of gasoline in China will be diminishing from now on.

The auto industry is in flux. The traditional big automakers are currently slowing down EV manufacturing as they work to come up to speed with the technology and market demand. Meanwhile, EV-only carmakers such as Tesla in the U.S. and BYD in China are ratcheting up production. BYD is focusing on emerging economies with its lower-priced offerings.

In the U.S., EV adoption has been slowed somewhat by high interest rates and the slow rollout of EVs by the Big Three automakers. But many new vehicles by a growing list of automakers will provide customers with more and more choices of EVs to suit diverse tastes and needs.

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This Year One in Five Cars Sold Globally Will Be an EV

Photo, posted November 18, 2023, courtesy of RL via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

More renewable energy for New York

November 24, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In late October, New York announced its largest state investment in renewable energy to date that includes three offshore wind projects, and 22 land-based clean energy projects totaling more than 6 GW of power generation.

The portfolio of projects is expected to create approximately 8,300 jobs and spur $20 billion in economic investments statewide.

The projects support the state’s goal to have 70% of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2030 and to have 9 GW of offshore wind operating by 2035. The announcement represents the first set of actions taken by the State as part of New York’s 10-Point Action Plan.

The three offshore wind projects include Attentive Energy One, a 1.4 GW project that seeks to retire fossil fuel power generation in New York City. Community Offshore Wind, a 1.3 GW project will make use of a new grid interconnection in downtown Brooklyn. Excelsior Wind, another 1.3 GW project, will provide robust energy deliverability to Long Island.

Apart from the offshore wind projects, there will be 14 new solar projects, six wind upgrading projects, one new wind project, and one return-to-service hydroelectric project.

The average bill impact for customers over the life of the land-based projects is estimated to be approximately 0.31%, or about 32 cents a month for the average customer. The bill impact for customers utilizing the offshore wind projects is estimated to be about 2.7%, or $2.93 per month.

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NY to invest in 3 offshore wind farms, 22 land-based renewable projects

Photo, posted October 21, 2016, courtesy of B Sarangi via Flickr.

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Are Companies Really Reducing Emissions? | Earth Wise

December 21, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many companies around the world are declaring tremendous progress in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Sometimes these claims are the result of actions that really do reduce emissions but other times they are the result of something called “market-based accounting”. Businesses buy credits from clean energy providers that allows them to say they are running on green power when they actually are not.

The market analysis firm Bloomberg Green analyzed almost 6,000 climate reports filed by corporations last year and found that over 1,300 of them employed market-based accounting to erase over 120 million tons of emissions from their records.

Some clean energy contracts do have major climate benefits. For example, companies like Amazon, Nestle, and Target have signed long-term power purchase agreements that ultimately help renewable developers finance new energy projects.

On the other hand, renewable energy credits are often short-term transactions with existing facilities and do little to stimulate investment or otherwise lead to greater use of green power. They simply shift around ownership of existing renewable energy without doing anything new for the climate.

Some companies have made meaningful cuts to their pollution by putting solar panels on their roofs, upgrading their lighting and air conditioning equipment, and so on. But many are reluctant to spend their capital in this way, even if it eventually saves money through lower electric bills.

Customers and shareholders want to see corporations do their part in reducing emissions. But too many are making grandiose claims enabled by market-based accounting while doing far too little to help the environment. Dubious claims of climate progress are not harmless; it is essential for the world’s companies to really do their share.

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What Really Happens When Emissions Vanish

Photo, posted July 16, 2014, courtesy of Mike Mozart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Phasing Out Disposables | Earth Wise

May 5, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Humans generate a remarkable amount of garbage. According to the World Bank, humans produce 4.5 trillion pounds of trash every year, with at least 33% of this garbage not managed in an environmentally-safe manner. By 2050, global garbage generation is expected to reach nearly 7.5 trillion pounds a year.

Globally, an average of 1.6 lbs of waste is generated per person per day. While high-income countries only account for 16% of the global population, they are responsible for about 34% of the world’s waste.

But almost everything humans throw away was bought from a company. Whether it was the packaging or the product itself, we purchased it from somewhere. There’s a growing movement to hold the companies responsible for the trash they produce.

Faced with increasing consumer consciousness, many companies are stepping up and announcing initiatives to reduce their waste. Starbucks is one of them. The company’s white logo-emblazoned paper cups and clear plastic cups are instantly recognizable symbols of the brand. But these ubiquitous cups are disposable and also serve as a symbol of our throwaway society.

By the end of next year, Starbucks is planning to allow customers to use their own personal mugs at every location in the U.S. and Canada. By 2025, the company wants every customer to be able to use either their own mug or to borrow a ceramic or reusable to-go mug. This borrow-a-mug program is currently being tested in eight different markets around the globe.

In lieu of regulation mandating corporate responsibility for waste, we will have to hope that more companies do the right thing.

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Starbucks is planning to phase out its iconic cups

Photo, posted June 11, 2010, courtesy of Sunghwan Yoon via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Clean Energy In Rochester | Earth Wise

October 26, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

New York’s largest community choice clean energy program has been activated in the City of Rochester. The program, offered by Rochester Community Power, offers 57,000 residences and small businesses access to clean energy from hydropower and wind sources. It requires customers to opt out rather than enroll in order to provide clean energy to the greatest number of people.

Rochester Community Power is the city’s local community choice aggregation (CCA) program that leverages the collective buying power of participating residents to purchase renewable electricity and negotiate better terms for energy supply contracts.

The program will supply customers with more than 300 million kWh of renewable energy each year, which will avoid the emission of about 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Rochester plans to add a community solar program next year which will provide additional clean energy opportunities, including offering guaranteed savings to thousands of participants in its Home Energy Assistance Program.

The project will be managed by Joule Assets, which is a provider of energy reduction market analysis, tools, and financing. Joule Assets, as program administrator for the Rochester program, managed the competitive bidding process that secured a fixed rate for electricity for the next two years, shielding participating residences and businesses from volatile market prices.

Community choice aggregation programs are local, not-for-profit public agencies that are an alternative to investor-owned utilities. They give municipalities the ability to make decisions about the procurement, sourcing, and rates for energy for its residents.

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New York activates its largest opt-out 100% renewable energy program

Photo, posted June 25, 2011, courtesy of Paulo Valdivieso via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Green Way To Turn Blue

August 5, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Indigo dye is what is used to color denim cloth and blue jeans. Historically, the dye came from a tropical plant most often found on the Indian subcontinent. Eventually, it became economically favorable to synthesize the dye instead and almost all of the 50,000 tons of the dye used annually is synthetic.

The processes used to make synthetic indigo are efficient and inexpensive, but they often require toxic chemicals and create a lot of dangerous waste. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute have now developed an eco-friendly production platform for a blue pigment called indigoidine. It has a similarly vividly saturated blue hue as synthetic indigo.

The researchers were investigating the ability of various fungal strains to express large enzymes known as NRPSs. They chose an NRPS that converts two amino acid molecules into indigoidine – a blue pigment – in order to make it easy to tell if the strain engineering had worked. Having the culture turn blue was an effective indicator.

Their primary interest was not the pigment but when they saw just how blue the culture was for one particular fungus, they realized that the fungal strain did not just produce indigoidine; it produced large amounts of it.

Thus they have found a way to efficiently produce a blue pigment that uses inexpensive, sustainable carbon sources instead of harsh chemicals. There is already a great deal of interest from the textile industry, where many companies are eager for more sustainably sourced pigments because customers are increasingly aware of the impacts of conventional dyes.

Thanks to a talented fungus called Rhodosporidium toruloides, there may now be a green way to turn blue.

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Blue Pigment from Engineered Fungi Could Help Turn the Textile Industry Green

Photo, posted March 7, 2006, courtesy of Willi Heidelbach via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Packing With Banana Leaves

July 25, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

More and more places are instituting bans on single-use plastic bags. Places like California and Hawaii already have bans in place and New Jersey is considering such a ban. New York’s law will go into effect next March. Supermarkets will no longer provide plastic bags at the checkout line. But the laws have some exceptions, including the plastic bags used to hold produce and to pack up meats.

Banning or reducing single-use plastic bags is a growing trend in Asia as well including places like South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.

One supermarket in Thailand came up with a novel approach to eco-friendly packaging: wrapping produce in banana leaves. The idea quickly became a viral hit on social media and drew the attention of supermarkets in Vietnam. Several big supermarket chains in that country also began experimenting with banana leaves as a packaging alternative.

Representatives of Vietnam’s Lotte Mart chain said that the banana leaf packaging was still in the testing phase, but they plan to replace plastic with leaves nationwide very soon. Aside from wrapping vegetables and fruits, the grocery chain intends to also use the leaves for fresh meat products.

Customers seem to be quite positive about the new packaging noting that it is actually quite attractive visually. The banana leaf packaging also makes people more aware of the need for protecting the environment.

While Vietnam is a relatively small country, it turns out that it ranks number four in the world for the largest amount of plastic waste dumped into the ocean. The country disposes of about 2,500 tons of plastic waste per day. So, efforts like the banana leaf packaging are not just symbolically important, they are genuinely a major environmental imperative.

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Supermarkets in Asia are Now Using Banana Leaves Instead of Plastic Packaging

Photo courtesy of Perfect Homes Chiangmai via Facebook.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The World’s Largest Storage Battery

May 24, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many homeowners are installing solar energy systems with battery backup. Energy stored in the battery can be used when the sun isn’t shining. As battery prices come down, utility-scale solar installations are also turning to battery-based energy storage.

Florida Power & Light has announced plans to build the world’s largest solar-storage combination facility in Manatee County. The 409-MW Manatee Energy Storage Center will be the largest solar-battery system by a factor of four. The specifics of the technology and source of the battery system components have yet to be announced.

The system, which is scheduled to be completed in late 2021, will be charged by a nearby FPL solar power plant. The plan is to discharge batteries during times of higher demand, thereby offsetting the need to run other power plants. As a result, there will be reduced emissions and customers will save as much as $100 million through avoided fuel costs.

Installing the mega-sized battery system will accelerate the retirements of two nearby 1970’s-era gas-fired generation units. At peak efficiency, the Manatee energy storage system will be able to power 390,000 homes for up to two hours.

FPL has already been pursuing the use of battery storage technology. Last year, they added a 10 MW battery storage system to its 74.5 MW Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center in Charlotte County.

These large battery systems are increasingly practical because of dramatic reductions in lithium-ion battery costs. The levelized cost of electricity from lithium-ion batteries has declined a remarkable 38% just since the beginning of 2018. The economics of clean energy continue to get better and better.

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FP&L Plans World’s Largest Energy Storage Battery To Support Its Renewable Energy Goals

Photo, posted April 21, 2010, courtesy of Frank Starmer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Whopping Change

April 10, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Burger King, the global hamburger fast food giant, recently made a huge announcement: Customers will soon have the option to select either a beef patty or a plant-based patty when ordering the iconic Whopper sandwich.

Burger King’s plant-based patty will be made by Impossible Foods, a California startup founded in 2011 with the explicit goal of decreasing the world’s reliance on animal agriculture. Impossible Foods signature product, the Impossible burger, has already debuted as a slider in White Castle’s 380 or so stores. It’s also being added to the menu at all 570 Red Robin locations. Other plant-based innovators, such as Beyond Meat, have also found some mainstream success. But the Impossible Whopper and the planned national roll-out at Burger King’s 7,200 locations is the biggest deal to date.

Impossible Foods’ major innovation comes from its use of heme, which is an iron-rich protein that in essence is what makes meat taste like meat. Impossible Foods cultivates heme directly from plants – soybean plant roots to be exact – and then mass produces it using yeast. This is then mixed with other plant-based ingredients to achieve the nutty texture of ground beef.

Meat production is one of the biggest single contributors to climate change. The Impossible burger represents a better choice for the environment. It requires 87% less water, 96% less land, and produces 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions when compared with beef burgers. At Burger King, the Impossible Whopper will have the same amount of protein as the regular Whopper, but 15% less fat and 90% less cholesterol.

Meatless continues to push into the mainstream.

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Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’

Photo, posted November 27, 2018, courtesy of Sarah Stierch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Australian Plastic Bag Ban

December 31, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Last summer, the two largest supermarket chains in Australia – Coles and Woolworth’s – decided to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags to customers. The initial public reaction was decidedly negative. However, within just three months after the radical change, the country’s National Retail Association reported an 80% drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide.

In that three-month period, it is estimated that 1.5 billion bags have been prevented from use. Some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90% in the use of the bags. The move by the big supermarkets has paved the way for smaller businesses to follow suit. The smaller businesses typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers with a major change like this. Customers have to learn to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags at the store.

In much of Australia, the phase-out of plastic bags has been legislated, but the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country’s largest city, has not enacted such legislation. So, supermarkets themselves are doing the work of getting rid of the bags.

The change has not been without hiccups. For the first couple of months after the plastic bag ban was put in place, Woolworth’s saw poor sales in its stores. However, customers eventually got used to the new way of doing things and sales levels returned.

Disposable plastic bags often find their way into the oceans where they break down into microparticles. Studies have shown that these plastic bits are ingested by a wide variety of marine life. For example, a UK study found that 100% of sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea had plastic in their digestive systems.

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