Template:Food waste

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Published: May 4, 2017

Author: Harrison Koyilla

Topic editor: Andy Jorgensen

Topic: Food waste in America

Food waste Composting landfills

Food Waste in America

America’s Sustainability is a discussion that has recently come into question, with regards to non-war efforts such as food waste. Americans grow and make a lot of food, and 40% of it, almost half, goes to waste.[1] That’s like walking 5 miles to get 100 buckets of water for your family every day, and when you get home, you pour out 40 buckets without any consideration of the fact that water may become extremely scarce in the future. This a huge issue that as of recent, more efforts are being put forward, to rectify the situation. This also affects the environment of the US if it is not clear, because food waste just buried underground as it decomposes, produces methane gas, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.[1]

Food Wasted

Yearly Americans waste 40% of their food, which is equivalent to roughly, 160 billion dollars’ worth of food. The problem is that most throw away the food in their households in an attempt to make sure the food they are consuming is fresh. It was found that 60% of people believe that this is the case, as found in a research survey done by a research firm called SSRS. It used a sample of people from around America, and used weights to ensure that the age, gender, and race of Americans was properly represented by the sample. The survey given to the sample of people, found that about 70% of people threw away the foods in their house because of Expiration dates. They believed that throwing away the food reduced the chances of them getting a food-borne illness such as salmonella poisoning.[2] What they do not understand, is that the expiration dates on the packages, relative to most of the food in grocery stores, is just for peak quality.[1] This means the food is still relatively good after the expiration date, it only has some wear and tear, like a soccer player after playing for 12 years.

A graph showing cost of food waste by household composition, with Graph from WRAP article. retrieved from:http://wrap.s3.amazonaws.com/the-food-we-waste.pdf. CC: MasterOfHisOwnDomain Wikimedia Commons.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons

Some places such as California are starting to invest in composting, because it in fact saves the state money. Composting is a novel idea that could be followed, because 21% of good food ends up in landfills, and the other 19% of wasted food gets thrown into incinerators. Composting essentially sends the nutrients back into the soil, which is good. Water is also a huge subject when it comes to food waste, because 80% of the water we consume goes into growing our food.[1]  So wasting so much food means that we are also wasting a lot of water, and considering the amount of fresh water left on the planet, 2.5% of the 70%that covers the earth.[3]

What is being done

Some efforts are being put forward to fix our 160-billion-dollar problem, such as Feeding America, and its partners, saving 2.8 billion pounds of food, and redistributes the food to those who need it. Feeding America works, with companies such as Starbucks, that quickly takes its unsold food to local Feeding America food banks.[4] The USDA and EPA will work together with charitable organizations, faith organizations, the private sector, and local, state and tribal governments, so they can reduce the amount of food being wasted in America. Their goal is to reduce the food waste by 50% by 2030. They also implemented the food waste challenge which asks for entities all over America to “reduce food waste by improving product development, storage, shopping/ordering, marketing, labeling, and cooking methods, recover food waste by connecting potential food donors to hunger relief organizations like food banks and pantries, recycle food waste to feed animals or to create compost, bio-energy and natural fertilizers. This is the motto that they are hoping will drive the betterment of the food problem we have in America.[5]

Landfills

Landfills are also a growing issue in America that Americans are completely unaware of. America produces 624, 700 metric tons of trash per day, and China produces 520, 548 metric tons of trash every day. These two super powers are the only countries that produce over 200, 00 metric tons of trash every day. A huge issue arising, is developing countries, that are industrializing much faster than they can keep up with the amount of waste they are producing. They spend a lot collecting, but they have no way to properly dispose of the waste.[6] In America, a lot of the 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills are located close to bodies of water, and there is leakage. Being close to water makes cleaning up of the leakage a lot harder. The leakage location services Inc. noted that 82% of landfills experienced leakage, and 41 % of them showed 1 square foot of leakage. Landfills are not impervious to leakage because the plastic that lines them will eventually degrade.[7]

Food waste is a major problem in America that no one just a couple of years was talking about on a national scale. Now however, with people looking at sustainability of their respective countries, and of the planet that we all share, the conversation has come up as a subset subject to climate change.

Further Readings

An article by Suzanne Goldenberg about Americas problem involving the waste of food

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Flatlow, Ira (2012) Talk of the Nation, the Ugly Truth about food waste in America. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/21/161551772/the-ugly-truth-about-food-waste-in-america
  2. ↑ Ramkumar, Amrith (2016) America Wastes $160 Billion in Food Every Year But Is Too Busy to Stop. Retrieved from:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/america-wastes-160-billion-in-food-every-year-but-is-too-busy-to-stop
  3. ↑ Freshwater Crisis. Retrieved from: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/freshwater/freshwater-crisis.html
  4. ↑ Fighting Food Waste with Food Rescue. Retrieved from: http://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/reduce-food-waste.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/
  5. ↑ Retrieved ffrom: https://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm
  6. ↑ Simmons, Ann.The world's trash crisis, and why many Americans are oblivious. Retrieved from: http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-trash-20160422-20160421-snap-htmlstory.html
  7. ↑ Landfill Problems. Retrieved from: http://www.wegreen-usa.org/landfill-problems.html

Citation

Koyilla, Harrison. (2017, May 4). Food Waste in America. Retrieved from: editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Template:Food_waste 


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