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Food wasted in primary and secondary education institutions creates nutritional losses, financial inefficiencies, and environmental degradation. While there is some evidence of how particular interventions within schools may influence the amount of waste created, there is little recent information about typical levels of food waste generated in U.S. primary and secondary schools and how waste correlates with school and meal characteristics. We analyze data reported by more than 100 schools from 24 states as part of the World Wildlife Fund’s Food Waste Warriors project and identify how plate and beverage waste from school lunches are associated with school and meal service characteristics. We find schools that permit students to choose their own amount of milk report 76% less milk waste than those reliant upon individual milk cartons while schools that implement at least one non-curricular intervention (e.g., a table where students can share unopened food) report significantly less produce waste than other schools. We confirm several patterns observed or hypothesized in the literature, including more waste generated by younger students and during the earliest and shortest lunch periods. We document several novel associations including more plate waste at smaller schools, during winter months and in the Northeast region. We find several nuanced patterns of waste related to the prevalence of free and reduced meal service and whether all meal elements are offered versus served. While this study cannot support rigorous evaluation of intervention effectiveness, it provides insights into school and program characteristics that may pose challenges for schools interested in reducing student plate waste. 

Researchers continue to explore ways to understand and promote pro-environmental behavior (PEB) amongst various populations. Despite this shared goal, much debate exists on the operationalization and the dimensionality of PEB and how it is measured. This piecemeal approach to measurement has limited the ability to draw conclusions across studies. We address limitations associated with previous measures of PEB by developing a multi-dimensional scale that is validated across both a general population of individuals residing in the United States as well as a group of individuals associated with a pro-environmental organization. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and reliability estimation were conducted for the developed measure across these two populations. Measurement invariance testing was also utilized to assess the psychometric stability of the scale across the two groups. Results indicated an 11 item scale was best fitting with two sub-scales: private and public behaviors. Implications for research and practice are discussed.