Food waste makes up 18 percent of NYS solid waste stream. The vast majority of this food is disposed of in landfills where it anaerobically decomposes producing and releasing methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) with a global warming potential of about 34X that of carbon dioxide (CO2). When food is landfilled or otherwise wasted, all the energy, water, nutrients, and labor it took to produce that food is wasted. If global food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of GHG after the United States and China.