Food Waste Is Wrong

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What if I told you that every time you threw away food you were driving another nail in the earth’s coffin. Yes, something as small as throwing away pretzels past their sell by date could actually be killing our planet. It’s shocking, but true. When food gets thrown away 95% of the time it ends up in a landfill where it produces methane, a greenhouse gas much more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. (Qi, Roe 2) It is also produces 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. (Paritosh et al. 1) Food waste is the largest source of municipal solid waste and the third largest producer of methane in the country, following livestock, another byproduct of food production. (USDA U.S Food Waste Challenge FAQ) Food waste happens on all levels of production, distribution, and consumption. Food waste extends far beyond the food itself. Not only is the food wasted, but all the resources that went into the making that food goes to waste. That includes all the water that went into producing it, the human labor, and the energy and resources that went into transporting and storing it. When meat is wasted all the resources that went into feeding the animal are wasted as well. Food waste may not be considered by most the most pressing issue facing us today, but it reality it’s a …show more content…

If people started with smaller portions used all of the ingredients we could reduce food waste. We also buy an excess amount of food that we end up throwing away because we didn’t had time to eat before it spoiled. If we took time during our shopping trips to truly consider whether or not we are actually going to eat an item not only would we reduce food waste but we’d also save money in the process. CNBC estimates that the average American spends $2,200 on food that they’ll never eat each year. (America's $165 billion food-waste problem 2015) That adds up to about $165 billion for all of

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