Food waste to landfill: carbon footprint per tonne landfilled
Live factor value
700.33 kgCO2e per tonne landfilled
Source: UK DESNZ greenhouse-gas conversion factors, 2026 (revision 2). Factor set desnz-2026-r2.
Food waste is the worst thing you can landfill: the official DESNZ 2026 factor, live below, is around 40% higher than mixed household waste per tonne, because food is almost entirely the readily-rotting material that becomes methane underground.
Route the same tonne to anaerobic digestion or composting and the disposal factor collapses to a few kilograms — a ~99% reduction, which is why separate food-waste collection is the single most effective change in household and event waste handling. And disposal is only the epilogue: the footprint of growing the wasted food is usually many times the landfill term.
Worked example
100 kg of catering food waste landfilled: 0.1 × 700.33 = 70 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free event calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- How much better is composting or AD than landfilling food?
- Roughly 99% lower on the official disposal factors — single-digit kilograms of CO2e per tonne versus around 700 kg for landfill, because aerobic breakdown and digestion avoid the methane.