Modeling American Household Fluid Milk Consumption and their Resulting Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Abstract

U.S. consumers are the largest contributors to food waste generation (FWG), but few models have explained how households waste food. This study examines how discrete-event simulation (DES) can identify areas for reducing FWG through packaging and consumer milk consumption behavioral changes. Household model parameters included: amount and type of consumption, type and number of containers bought, buying behavior, and shelf life of milk. Simulations comparing the purchase of quart, half gallon, and gallon milk containers were run for 10,000 days to identify which package type reduced waste for 50 1, 2 and 4-person households. Based on consumption averages from the U.S. National Dairy Council, results suggest that if 1 and 4-person households change their purchasing behavior from 1 half-gallon to 1 quart and 2 gallons to 3 half-gallons, they can reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from milk consumption by 33% and 12%, respectively, without reducing their total milk consumption. Purchasing enough smaller containers to be equivalent to a larger size decreased spoilage, but not enough to reduce a consumer’s total milk consumption GHG emissions. Results showed that packaging accounts for 5% of the total milk consumption GHG emissions; most of a consumer’s impact comes from milk spoilage and consumption.

Routledge Handbook of Food Waste

“…For this reason, work is underway (at the time of writing) by Sheffield University and WRAP to extend the model: to include a wide range of products and to incorporate additional household dynamics important to food waste -see Kandemir et al (2019). Alongside this other milk simulation models are being developed -for instance see Stankiewicz et al (2019). It is hoped these new models will provide an important tool to help understand this particularly knotty problem and provide guidance on the most effective methods for reduce household food waste.…”

Using discrete event simulation to explore food wasted in the home

“…In this paper, we have presented the household simulation model (HHSM) and use it to examine the approximate reduction in food waste from changes to a food product (product-life extension) or behavioural dynamics (responding to food about to expire). Alongside previous, small-scale deployment of discrete event simulation (DES) to the topic of household food waste (Quested, 2013;Stankiewicz et al, 2019), this paper demonstrates the benefits of the model for those working to reduce the amount of food waste. The HHSM can now provide simulated evidence on product innovation and behaviour change to policy makers, the food industry, and wider society.…”

“…Given this evidence gap, there is a place for modelling -and simulation in particular -to help decision makers. Preliminary simulation studies have been conducted by Quested (2013) and Stankiewicz et al (2019), both of which used discrete event simulation (DES). In addition, agent-based modelling linked to Bayesian Networks has been applied to the issue of food waste in European households by Grainger et al (2019).…”

“…Its predictions are similar to results from empirical research. Stankiewicz et al (2019) applied the Milk Model framework to milk waste from US households. Improvements on the Milk Model included explicitly considering the consumption patterns of different household members.…”

Integrating consumer behaviour into the environmental assessment of circular packaging: a scoping review

“…Finally, one of the reviewed studies applied a discreteevent simulation to model the probability of different consumer behaviours and the influence of behavioural changes on milk waste (Stankiewicz et al 2019). The results from this simulation were combined with information on GHG emissions to estimate the climate change impacts of three different package delivery systems.…”