It Takes a Village In 2025, Waco will have to find a new piece of land to create a new landfill as the current one that we have will be full. One of the biggest contributing items of landfills is food waste. Food waste is food that is still edible, but is discarded for any reason, (Buzby, Wells, Hyman 1) which we are all guilty of doing. The effects of food waste are not only hurtful to our wallets but to our environment as well. However, most food waste can be prevented and I have an idea of how to do so. The United States Department of Agriculture used the Economic Research Service, or ERS, in 2010 to calculate how much food waste was occurring on retailer and consumer levels. The ERS found that a total of 133 pounds, or 31 percent of the …show more content…
As stated above, retailers are responsible for contributing 10 percent of food waste in the United States. Retailers routinely order large quantities of food that they believe will be in demand by customers. However, majority of the time, a large portion of the food that they buy go unsold which results in more product than they need or have room for. Food items that are aesthetically unappealing, such as a severely bruised banana or a dented can of green beans, will go ignored by consumers who leave them behind on store shelves. Stores normally have no choice but to either discount these “damaged” goods in order to gain customer attention or throw them out. Most of the retail stores in the U.S. sale some type of premade foods or have a deli in their stores. These perishable food items typically have a short life span and begin to go bad in few hours, days or weeks. After these item’s shelf life expires, they are usually discounted and eventually thrown out if they are not purchased. “Expiration” or “Best-by” dates are by far one of the biggest culprits of food waste in retail stores. Consumers often confuse “expiration” or “best-by” dates with how long an item is good for. In reality, these dates do not represent much of anything. “People believe expiration dates are related to safety. But the dates are not defined by law—they’re a manufacturer’s …show more content…
Donating food that is still healthy enough to safely be consumed by humans seems like a highly successful way of diverting potential food waste from landfills. In fact, there are many businesses around Waco who already donate some of their unsellable goods to those in need. Walmart, Target, and Sam’s Club, are some of the few businesses that partner with the organization, Feeding America, in order to give food that would normally go to the landfill to those in need. (Food and Fund Partners) Feeding America takes the food that the stores would normally throw away and stores them so that those who need it are able to come and pick up the food. The food banks then provide the food to those who need it. (Our History) This process is good and works to help a better cause but there is still a tremendous amount of food leftover ever after
The majority of people waste food on a daily basis. In fact, in the U.S. alone there is an estimate that over half of the food produced goes uneaten; meanwhile there are people who are in need of food, and it ultimately goes to waste (Dockterman). For example, in his essay, “On Dumpster Diving,” author Lars Eighner writes about his experiences of dumpster diving with his pet dog, during his years of homelessness. According to Eighner, much of the food and materials he came across in the dumpsters were in usable shape, and many items were new. Clearly there needs to be a change in American food waste, in current and, hopefully not so much in, future generations.
There are so many people in need and if the food is not “good enough” to stock on a shelf, why couldn’t the food be donated to shelters or food banks if it were truly uncontaminated? The documentary film stresses this idea and just how much waste retail chains have at the end of every day and just how little they are willing to donate to the local homeless shelters and food banks. Seifert even
She suggests that Americans should reduce their overconsumption of such commodities since they are overburdening the non-biodegradable waste load in the garbage collection facilities. It is surprising to note that every Americans disposes more than four pounds of trash on a daily basis (Royte, 2005).
Also, learn about food waste in the U.S. compared to other countries. What are some of the things people are doing in an effort to minimize food waste? As always, provide
More than $31 billion worth of food is wasted every year in Canada and when energy, water and other resource costs are factored in the true cost could be up to as much as $107 Billion each year according to a report published by Value Chain Management International, a consulting firm, which suggests that millions of kilograms of food is wasted every year in Canadian homes, restarants, & grocery stores. This finding shows a 15 % increase from their findings four years ago when the cost was $27 Billion,in 2010. They also go on to say that this is 2% of Canada s GDP and larger than the total economic output of the poorest 29 countries on the planet.
Harry Chapin Food Bank is located in Fort Myers and distributes food throughout Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties. The food bank is placed in a giant food warehouse that looks almost like a Costco. The volunteers at the food bank sort out produce, frozen meats, canned goods, and bread by making sure that even after the expiration date, it qualifies as fresh. I learned that many and almost all food companies put an expiration date on their products only because it benefits their business. Every time we throw out a product due to its expiration date, the more we go back to the store to buy products. These food companies have feed us false information by making us throw away good food while there are people starving. Unaware, there is a lot of wasted
Much of the food is thrown into landfills, where it rots, which has very negative effects on the environment. According to John Oliver, the food left to rot in the landfills releases methane, an extremely powerful greenhouse gas (Oliver, 2015). Methane is a greenhouse gas, meaning it destroys the ozone layer and contributes to the warming of the earth. By refraining from throwing out so much food, or at least redirecting it to people who need it, food waste would be reduced, and so would its harm on the environment. Not only does the rotting food release greenhouse gases, the resources wasted to deal with the unwanted food are huge. According to Kevin Hall, Juen Guo, Michael Dore, and Carson Chow, “Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change” (Hall, Guo, Dore, & Chow, 2009, p. 1). America is essentially using resources like water and fossil fuels, that we could be directing towards a better cause, to dispose of perfectly good food that will then release harmful gases of methane and carbon dioxide. Food waste matters because it is a complete waste of valuable resources and food that is needed by many, while also contributing to the growing problem of climate
Food insecurity is defined by those who either do not have enough or are at real risk of not having enough food for their family. In May of 2009, there were approximately 38 million Americans defined as food insecure. That number grew to nearly 49 million 6 months later, and today there are over 50 million food insecure Americans (1 out of every 6). I find this astounding, because about 30 percent of all produce is thrown away before it even reaches the grocery store. Why? Because of cosmetic imperfections that are stipulated by large grocers that decide how produce should look. That is roughly 100 billion pounds of food a year or 1 pound per American per day that is being wasted because they aren’t pretty. America has begun to cater to only the perfectionist shoppers and has forgotten about those who do not have the money to purchase highly-priced produce. One of the ways we can start to solve this problem is through minimizing food waste at the beginning of the chain. Farmers typically throw away roughly 30 percent of all produce because they do not meet the guidelines for color, shape or number of blemishes. Instead, we should be following the
In Martinsburg, WV, fast food ruined the landscape, “In 1942 there were about 3 million apple and peach trees in the area, today there are about 300,000,”(p.20 lines:65-67) In addition, most farmers are selling the remaining farmland,”The last remaining farmers are selling their land to real estate developers, and new neighborhoods”(p.20 lines:65-67). Other effects of fast food is landfill problems,“Fast food places use a lot of a lot of packaging. From the wrappers and straws to the boxes and bags, fast food packaging counts for an estimated 40 percent of all litter (including drinks, chips, candy, and other snacks) with Styrofoam being the most common food waste. What’s more, Styrofoam takes an unbelievable 900 years to breakdown in landfill!” These are some of the ways that fast food affects the
Best buy dates on food is really about quality rather than safety purposes. "where people feel comfortable throwing out food that is likely still edible just because they can afford to".(ferdman 2).One of the main reason why America throws away 35 million tons of food a year is because most people in the usa can afford to do so. even though there are people in the usa that are suffering with poverty the amount of food thrown away could feed them and other countries going through world
Individuals waste some $14.6 billion worth of food every year, about 47 percent of the total. This mainly consists of food items that Canadians buy with the intention of using in their homes, but never do, so it ends up eventually in a landfill or composted. This is a very sensitive environmental issue as these composting facilities create massive amount of Methane gas that are released into the environment, damaging the ozone and attributing to the man-made manipulation of the global warming/cooling process. Food manufacturing and processing is responsible for as much as one-fifth of the food wasted across the country. Ten per cent of food waste happens on the farm, before even entering the larger food system. Retailers waste another 10 per cent. Restaurants and hotels waste a further nine per cent. The rest is wasted at processing facilities such as food terminals, or during transportation. The report notes that food waste in the travel sector is especially egregious — up to five kilograms per person, per day, according to some estimates. Even using more conservative estimates, these watchdog groups say that we could feed 200,000 inhabitants of poorer countries for a year with nothing more than the food that gets wasted on European airlines every year. On international flights, regulations require any excess food be thrown out after a flight — regardless of whether it was used, cruise liners seem to be the worst culprit, generating the highest per capita food waste. Waste like that costs everyone, not just the person who
Since industrialization in early America, the food industry has been growing, and with the development of prepackaged foods and fast-food chains, having snacks at your fingertips is a luxury that seems convenient and beneficial… until one considers the effects of junk food on the body and brain. Generally, junk food is characterized as food with high fat and sugar content and minimal nutritional value (Karimi-Shahanjarini et al., 2012). In modern day America, it is common to arrive home from a long day at school or work and grab a conveniently prepackaged snack to quiet your munchies and calm your nerves. Although this seems like a harmless act, eating these snack foods can have negative effects on the body and brain.
Food waste is the biggest space consumer in our landfills, which may seem surprising, but shouldn’t be based on the amount of food that is consumed on a daily basis and the large proportion of food that is wasted. The main problem with the amount of food waste in landfills, is that it produces methane as it decomposes which is detrimental to the atmosphere as a whole, and can have lasting effects. The buildup of all the methane produced results in huge amounts of global warming potential which is extremely detrimental to our environment. Also, because of the fact that so many resources are used in order to grow certain foods, they are all being put to waste when the food that used these resources goes directly to landfills. This applies to water usage, soil richness, and petroleum usage. As far as costs go, food waste affects the economy by about $750 billion a year, which is a massive amount of money that could be going elsewhere. Because we are losing so much money, it is clear that there is a great need for change in the food system, especially in the United
Firstly, the threat to the environment, as a result of factory farms poorly managing the waste produced, thereby contaminating the air, ground, and water in their communities is often not acknowledged. This is because the industry does not want to admit to the harmful environmental impacts created by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). According to Daniel Imhoff, "100 acres of land for an animal food factory generates the same amount of sewage as a city of 100,000 inhabitants." (CAFO xii) This idea was exemplified in a study in the United States, where the waste was measured; it was found that 500 million tons of waste was produced per year, which is three times the amount of the population of the U.S (CAFO xii). Another study found that more than one ton of 'dry matter' of animal waste was produced for every c...
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...