Day 9 food waste

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Overview

“Imagine walking out of a grocery store with four bags of groceries, dropping one in the parking lot, and just not bothering to pick it up. That’s essentially what we’re doing.” – Dana Gunders, Author, Advisor/Expert, Food Waste Reduction

We live in a world of contradictions, especially when it comes to our food supply. Nearly 1/3 of all food produced globally ends up as food waste. In America alone, 30– 40% of food produced is never eaten. That’s almost half of the food in the country! And despite such startling amounts of waste, 1 in 9 Americans struggle to feed themselves or their families and 820 million people go hungry worldwide each year. This is a massive crisis. Worldwide, the estimated amount of food wasted this year alone is over 193 million tons.

Food waste isn’t merely about throwing away an uneaten plate of pasta, though personal actions definitely play a role. Food waste includes all food lost during each stage of the food lifecycle: (1) farming and cultivation, (2) processing, (3) retail, (4) consumption. An estimated 20 billion pounds of produce is wasted on US farms each year, not to mention the millions of tons thrown out from homes, restaurants, grocery stores, schools, stadiums, office complexes and more. 

Which element of the food life cycle is most wasteful depends on where you live. As explained in today’s TED Talk, in developing countries, food loss occurs primarily during production. Meanwhile, developed countries, including the US, waste close to 220 lbs of food per year per person in consumption. All too often, at our tables and in our fridges, we don’t eat food simply because of less than perfect appearance or perceived spoilage due to poor storage. 

Clearly, elevated food waste is problematic for many reasons, but something that adds a layer of even greater urgency is the burden it poses to our planet. Wasting food wastes everything that went into making it: water from growing and washing the food, labor at all levels of production, fuel for agriculture and transportation, money spent to purchase food that never gets eaten – all waste! 

To make matters worse, rotting food in landfills emits methane, a greenhouse gas twenty-five times more potent than CO2.  Statements from the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit affirmed that reducing food waste is a better way to reduce carbon emissions than planting trees or building solar facilities. Limiting food waste is a crucial factor in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a level that can ensure a sustainable climate future.

The good news is that this massive food waste problem is being addressed both locally and globally. The student-founded organization Food Recovery Network connects with college campuses in an effort to simultaneously reduce food waste and food insecurity. Companies like Imperfect Produce are taking the food that farmers would typically discard and selling it straight to consumers to reduce unnecessary waste. Many local organizations are working to address food waste, and likely working in your very community.

Another way to address food waste is through composting. This is the natural process of nutrient cycling by which food breaks down into fertile soil for use in gardens and at farms. Driven by fungi, bacteria and invertebrates (the composting FBI), the end result is soil that is rich in nutrients and can be applied to potted plants, gardens and farms. This process also prevents the release of methane that occurs when food waste is in landfills, reducing both the amount of waste entering landfills and need for chemical fertilizers.

In 2017, the EPA found that 30.712 tons of food waste went to the landfill in the US, while only 2.6 tons were composted. Composting is also very useful because it can be used at different scales. Some homes have their own personal compost (do you?!), many farms utilize compost systems and numerous communities now have commercial compost collection that gets picked up residentially at regular intervals. Composting allows the nutrients that went into producing your food to be used once again, a natural, healthy and beneficial cycle.