Lunch ends. A student tosses a half-eaten sandwich into a green bin, drops their plastic leftovers from a morning Starbucks run into a blue one and hurries off to class. In mere hours, both bins are empty once more. Though the trash cycle may seem like a short process, this journey is just beginning. 

Every year, $936 billion worth of food is wasted, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). These 1.3 billion tonnes, equivalent to one third of all food produced,...