Household food-waste production and a proposal for its minimization in Mexico

One effort to encourage households to reduce their waste is based on educational programs. However the educational-program evaluation is nascent and there is a lack of and poor quality of proposals. This field study contributes to the filling of this literature gap. Forty-one volunteer families took part in a quasi-experimental study with two nonrandomized groups, using a pretest and posttest design. During a full year, wastes were weighed weekly (1,432 samples) and a workshop aimed at the minimizing of food-waste production behavior, home technology, and composting was offered. Significance differences (95%) were measured when a paired Student's t-test and a Chi square test were used. Four main conclusions were made. (1) The average production of food wastes in Mexico was similar to other developed countries, (2) the food-waste reduction and the workshop were not independent, (3) the workshop increased environmental awareness and capacity building, and (4) food-waste weighing was a feasible and robust tool to measure the impact of the workshop.