In a recent article Aspen Institute stated that 50% of the food that humans produce is wasted (“Aspen Institute” para. 1). This is a huge percentage that has affected vast populations. Imagine what people would be able to do with that amount of food. The question is how are we able to solve this kind of problem if it is such a major percentage? There are many answers to this question but one of the best ways people are helping to end food waste is by using compost. Compost is a key to the future and with it many new innovations are made and the world is a better place (“Scientific American” para. 2).
Composting is a unique idea in which organic material goes through the natural process of decomposition and turns into rich soil known as compost. The compost is used as a soil for different purposes. Food waste could be used to create the compost (“University of Florida” para. 2). Many people continue to deposit things into the trash by doing this compost is being supplied to nature. However, not everything thrown away can be converted into compost because many of the deposited materials are non-organic materials. This includes things made from plastic and metals. However, materials such as vegetables and fruits are converted into compost because these types of foods are organic materials (“University of Florida” para. 3). Food waste is an important component of compost because it contains the moisture that the soil needs. Food waste has a low content structure and food waste is mixed with fresh food that absorbs the excess moisture and adds content to the food waste. Food waste that is thrown out before anyone has used it comes from an excess supply of food. This kind of food waste is easier to turn into compost because most of i...
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...amount of food waste take a communal effort and effort requires people working hard to find a solution. Food waste will not be stopped all of a sudden; in fact it may not end in this generation or the next. Our responsibility is to continue creating ideas to help the next generation.
Bibliography
1. Webber, Michael. "How to Make the Food System More Energy Efficient: Scientific American." How to Make the Food System More Energy Efficient: Scientific American. Scientific American, Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
2. Glickman, Dan. "How Preventing Food Waste Can Help with Food Security." The Aspen Institute. The Aspen Institute, 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
3. Risse, Mark. "Food Waste Composting: Institutional and Industrial Application B 1189." Food Waste Composting: Institutional and Industrial Application. University of Georgia, 22 June 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
The first step in achieving food security is to maximise the use of food already being produced and to minimise its waste. The FAO (2013) estimates that 1.3 billion tonnes
As Americans, we waste more food than many countries even consume. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “The average American trashes 10 times as much food as a consumer in South east Asia” (Hsu). That is about equivalent to eating 10 meals to a consumer in South East Asia’s one meal. We throw away our left over food just because we are done ea...
In elementary school, we are taught by our teachers that fruit peels can be composted to recycle nutrients back into the soil where they came from. Composting food scraps is not a new idea by any means, but what if it was to be expanded into something much bigger? Recently, a study outlining the environmental impact of recycling digested food waste in comparison to that of chemical fertilizer was published by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In the experiment, the scientists found that currently, the two were relatively equal in terms of general environmental impact, and that in order for the food waste fertilizer to prevail, further enhancements will have to be made to
We need to stay away from the landfills as much as we can so eventually we can get rid of them all together. The benefits of compost include increased soil organic matter content, nutrients for plant growth, replacement of peat moss in potting media, reduced erosion, plant disease resistance, weed suppression and generally improved plant vigor (Barlaz 62). Instead of taking grass clippings to the trash people can leave them laying in the yard to decompose or they can use them to help make their compost. People can even make their own composting bins to use at their homes. There are several reasons why people should compost. If people start composting they can keep their garbage, yard trimmings or leaves from getting to the landfills. Which in turn will keep those things from getting in our water or water supplies. If these things get in our waterways or water treatment facilities it just makes more work for other people. Also by composting people will help their plants look healthier. Sharon Durham talks about manure, composting and how it effects the soil in her article, “Improving on a Time-Tested Technique.” Durham says, “Composting results in stabilization of nitrogen in organic form for use in soil” (20). The soil the plant is grown in will be better and help the plants produce better if you are growing food. “Compost may even be tailor-made to reduce phosphorus availability and
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
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
Roberts believes that “food is a solution, a cause for joy and positive energy” (Roberts, page 18). Most of the time, it is more costly to waste the food than to use the food as a tool, which can bring new opportunities. As the example he provides in the book, Will Allen, a gardener from the US, uses spent grain as an opportunity to make compost for sale and to heat his own greenhouses using the heat generated from the composting process (Roberts, page 21). This way, he has also helped find an effective way to dispose of used food rather than treating it as trash which is actually not cheap to manage. Hence, Roberts concludes that there are so many hidden resources in the world, which can be used to work with food to create opportunities and to benefit the society, economy and environment while saving money (Roberts, page
My family already has a composting pile in the yard and I never really noticed its value. I always thought of it as a pile of trash and would be reluctant to recycle leftovers when my parents told me to. It would have been so much easier to just throw everything away in the trashcan. In “Waste Not Want Not” Bill McKibben states that, “we toss 14 percent of the food we buy at the store” (304). That is a lot of food that can be put to better use instead of being wasted. Old food scraps will eventually turn into rich soil that can be used to grow an organic garden. The produce that I buy in the grocery store is not as healthy as I think it is because most of it is filled with chemicals that can be harmful to humans. There is a “displacement of nearly the entire farming population and the replacement of their labor and good farming practices by machines and toxic chemicals” (Berry 401). Using compost to plant my own food I do not have to live in fear about what I am feeding to my family. Composting is not only a good source to keep food out of landfills but it promotes a healthy and natural lifestyle.
There’s no point in contributing to this wastage when you can assist in a positive manner. It’s extremely easy to help, even by doing the simplest things such as learning that produce tastes good no matter it’s appearance, shopping in a reasonable matter and not confusing food date labels, causing you to throw out perfectly good food. You might think that food waste isn’t your problem, however you might be surprised that 47% of food waste in Canada happens at home, including ours, making this as huge of a problem for you as it is for everyone else. It’s never too late to start helping now and inform others about these tips that can affect a lot and reduce the tremendous amount of food that gets wasted for many generations to
In order to bring about change in this misuse of food, Americans need to be conscious of the problem and their practices, the environmental effects, and ways they can reduce waste. In the first place, Americans need to be conscious of the problem and their practices. In her article, Eliana Dockterman states that the National Resources Defense Council has estimated that 40% of the food
Composting is the process of biodegrading the waste material in which an enormous number of materials like hydrocarbons, nitrogenous compounds, acids, their derivatives and even other organic and inorganic substances can be remediated from the environment (Finstein et al., 1986). Compost pro...
I have chosen the topic of food waste and the impact on the environment. I will discuss the ridiculous amount of food that is wasted each year and the staggering amount of waste that could be avoided just by planning ahead, and purchasing from farmer’s markets and avoiding the main stream supermarkets who set such high standards on the aesthetic of produce that tonnes are wasted for no reason other then shape.
Food waste is defined by food that is lost, wasted, or discarded and is caused through a few different processes. Food is wasted through many different ways at farms, grocery stores, and in homes. Over 40% of the food in the United States, specifically, goes to waste and 97% percent of this waste goes straight to landfills. The main issue with food waste is that the majority of food is being wasted unnecessarily. In stores, food is often thrown out because it does not meet specific standards that dictate what may be desirable to consumers. This issue of food picking is important as foods are not always being thrown away because they have gone bad, but because they have appearances that do not seem attractive. If we hope to lessen the environmental impact we have as a result of the mass
Sustainable food consumption: an overview of. Contemporary issues and policies. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy 9(2):7-25. http://www.google.com/archives/vol9iss2/1207-033.reisch.html Withgott, J., & Laposata, M. (2014). Environment: the science behind the stories (5th Ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.
The amount of food that is wasted in the world is astronomical, Finn states about 1.3 billion tons goes to waste annually. 40% of food goes uneaten just in the United States. The amount that is produced goes back to how and where it is produced and The