Food Waste in USA

First, we are going to discuss the financial problems. When food is wasted, all the resources that have been used to be produced were also wasted. It is easy to see the costs on uneaten food that throwing away the food is throwing money in the garbage. In the U.S. as much as 40% of food goes uneaten and it is responsible for massive financial losses, according to ReFED which is a nonprofit organization focusing on reducing food waste, the value of food wasted in the U.S. currently comes in at approximately $165 billion per year, in addition, can you imagine that you’re throwing out an average of $1484 food if you were born in a family of four in America, you may not even be aware of it.

While most of the wasted food goes to landfill where many it ends up, it comes up with a massive quantity during the holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving and usually causes landfills to clog up. The trash food will also produce methane and greenhouse gas as the food breaks down which contributes to climate change, it is the biggest threat to the ecosystem that having a faster pace on affecting our earth than humans imagined. The chemical pollutants generated by waste food, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is 21 times more harmful than carbon dioxide(CO2). This routine also contributes to the financial costs on transporting and disposing of wasted food. According to the New York Times “Food Waste Is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says," it shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value up to $162 billion.

About 32 million metric tons of it end up in municipal landfills, for about $1.5 billion a year to local governments. All the countries are attaching importance to this problem. In 2006, the Paris Agreement is issued by National Communication on dealing with greenhouse gas emission aimed to keep global average temperature increase below 2°C above the pre-industrial level. The countries under this agreement must determine, plan, and regularly report on the contribution that relieving global warming.

Cite this page