Everybody’s talking about it — the rising price of food, mounting food insecurity! But go beyond the headlines and you find another story — shocking food waste. The sad truth is that Americans waste nearly 600 pounds of food a year — each! The ethical dilemma presented by such waste is obvious, but there are other pressing reasons to address this problem.
The financial costs:
Obviously, if you throw away a dollar’s worth of food, you are throwing away a dollar from your household budget. But you are also adding to your tax bill — food waste is the single largest component of municipal trash, over 22%. You are also paying to maintain roads that transport food, both before and after it is tossed. You are paying for public water projects that irrigate crops and water meat animals. In the US we toss about 80 billion pounds of food each year, nearly 40% of our entire food production. But, hey — we are a rich country: if we want to throw food away, why not?
The true cost of food waste is ecological:
One result of our recent studies on global warming is to discover that food waste accounts for nearly 11% of greenhouse gas emissions. The problems are many:
Discarded food that winds up in municipal landfills degrades into both CO2 and methane, the two most important drivers of the greenhouse effect.
The agricultural footprint of raising discarded food is high. Common farming practices release huge amounts of CO2 and methane.
Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, both from landfills and croplands, pollutes waterways, decreasing biodiversity and is a contributing factor in the current wave of extinctions.
Fossil fuels are heavily involved in food production — and hence food waste: petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, transportation to distribute crops around the country, transportation to take away our trash.
Crop lands that are used to raise discarded food could be better used to sequester carbon as forests or prairies. Or to build solar farms that would reduce our fossil fuel needs.
Irrigation waters that now go to raise wasted food would be better used to restore aquifers as a hedge against drought.
Wasted food is usually accompanied by wasted packaging, almost invariably petrochemical plastics.
When it comes to food waste, the US tops the heap!
As in so many other areas driving climate change, America is again the undisputed king. While Australia somehow manages to beat us on a per capita basis, the US accounts for the greatest total by far. Here are some of the reasons:
Expectations for “perfect” produce. Items with slight blemishes are often discarded even if otherwise fresh and nutritious. Heavy applications of agricultural chemicals is another byproduct our of our perfect food fetish.
The American preference for huge refrigerators, which tend to produce more “science projects.”
Confusing food labeling, where a “sell by” date can be misinterpreted as an “expiration date.”
Our preferences for large package sizes, warehouse type shopping and hoarding for perceived “emergencies.”
The passing of the Great Depression generation. People who have lived with true food scarcity are more careful to prevent spoilage.
Who’s responsible?
A lot of surprisingly thorough research has been done on food waste. The guilty parties?
Homes — 43%
Restaurants, grocery stores, etc. — 40%
Farms and processing facilities — 17%
Things you can do to help:
One might think that reducing food waste would provide an easy path to slow reduce global warming — just stop wasting so much! But the problem is multifaceted, entrenched and difficult.
Remember that you pay for wasted food — if you don’t care about the financial cost, remember the ecological one.
Nearly a quarter of food delivered to supermarkets is thrown away. Encourage your local markets to work with food banks and homeless shelters.
Keep tabs on the food in your fridge. Tips for reducing food waste
Try to understand the confusing date labels on your purchases. Properly stored food will often last well beyond its “best if used by” date.
Cook smaller recipe batches and serve smaller portions at meals.
Buy from local farmers and embrace “ugly” produce.
Composting releases far less greenhouse gases than sending food waste to a landfill. If you live in an urban area, encourage and use composting programs. If you have room in your backyard, set up your own compost bin.
When eating out, order less and bring your own reusable take home containers.
Support a food waste curriculum at your local school. Kids can be surprisingly effective at policing their wasteful parents, and will hopefully grow into more mindful adults.
Thanks for reading,
Doug Hylan Brooklin, Maine
“Throwing away food is a sin against hungry people. Throwing away meat is a sin against the animal.” Shirley Hylan, my mother, who grew up during the Great Depression.
Timely topic, Doug. Thanks for bring it up. I received a copy of Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet, 50th Anniversary Edition for Christmas this year and she has a lot to say about food waste too. Check it out for that info and all the rest of her presentation on our collective food dilemma. And thanks for your comment on my New Year's Day post.