By These statistics about food waste in the U.S are absolutely astounding.
With the start of the UN Climate Summit, the environment is top of the collective mind right now. In a recent Washington Post article, Roberto A. Ferdman revealed some incredible information about how much food waste the United States produces and just how big of an impact that waste has on our environment and the rest of the world.
In 2012, Americans tossed out 50% more food than they did in 1990. Two years ago (the last recorded year for which data is currently available), the U.S. discarded 35 million tons of food, up 50% from 1990.
Food waste accounts for more than 20% of the nation's trash. That makes food waste more significant than metal, paper, plastic, or glass waste by tens of millions of tons.
Related: This Eatery Has Produced Just One Bag of Trash in the Last Two Years
Nearly 40% of all food in America's supply ends up in the trash. And nearly one-third of the entire world's food supply gets tossed. That means that despite the incredible levels of starvation in some parts of the world (an estimated one in every nine people is chronically hungry), many wealthy countries are throwing away as much as a combined 222 million tons of food every year. Distribution, rather than production, is clearly the major problem with the world's food supply today — a point that is backed up by the UN's recently released report on world hunger.
The discarded food affects the environment, too. Methane, which is released in landfills as food decomposes, is 20 times more harmful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And aside from greenhouse gases, there is the cost of producing food that no one ever even eats — we Americans are worst with our vegetables, throwing out approximately 52% of them (as well as 50% of our seafood and 20% of our milk).
While a number of organizations and groups are working to correct these problems, more awareness is of these issues is crucial. If you're looking to get involved, contact the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Save Food Initiative, the DC Central Kitchen, or another local group.
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