Conference Proceeding

Throwing Out the Apples and the Oranges: A Comparison of Methods to Measure In-Home Food Waste

Holthuysen, Nancy, Vries, Mariska Nijenhuis-de, Quested, Tom, van Herpen, Erica, van der Lans, Ivo

2018

Overview

The task of keeping a food-waste diary is considerable (Langley et al, 2010), which implies not only difficulties in recruitment and high dropout rates, but also the potential risk of self-selection and poor data quality (Sharp et al, 2010). Because foodwasting behaviours result from multiple routinized behaviours, underreporting is likely for these measures (Hebrok & Boks, 2017). Wastecomposition analysis focuses on the waste put out for collection, which implies that the researcher is unable to observe food waste that was disposed of by other means (e.g., sink waste disposal units, home composting, animal feed) (Parizeau et al, 2015). [...]in-home observation holds potential for improving the accuracy of measurements while lowering the burden for respondents. [...]due to the relatively high correlations between methods, most of the methods are appropriate measurement tools for determining the relative amount of in-home food waste from different households, with the exception of the general survey questions, which appear less appropriate in comparison.

• Publisher: Association for Consumer Research
• Subject: Consumer behavior / Consumers / Diaries / Food waste / Households / Waste management