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the problem of food waste
reduction in food waste essay
example of food waste
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Almost two billion tonnes of food is waste around the world every year. Meanwhile, twenty million people suffer starvation in countries such as Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, and Nigeria. Moreover, while farmers work hard to sustain the most essential element in civilization, almost one-third of the world’s population doesn’t even receive anything. Which is maddening that first world nations’ governments does not make actions on how to donate or maybe sell them for cheaper to countries that are in need instead of just dumping the food waste on landfills. Landfills have a huge impact on Earth for removing oxygen, which causes to break down aerobic process and as a result it releases methane. Furthermore, landfills will affect animals near it and
Food waste is classified in many ways, such as through a liquid form like water, garden waste, plate waste which is the food that is left behind after eating a meal, and lastly Luxus waste which is a term for overconsumption as a form of food waste that leads to health problems. But according to the article about food waste written by George Willson “food loss refers to the decrease in edible mass that occurs at production, postharvest, and processing stages in the food supply chain, whereas food waste occurs at the end of the food chain in retail and final consumption” (Willson). Therefore, food waste has multiple sources on where it comes from. And though we as the consumer, we will have the power to stop this ongoing
Many consumers misunderstand the labels and sometimes throw food that can still be considered as edible. As a result, just in the United Kingdom alone “2 million tonnes of annual food waste is due to confusion over date labels” which is a very devastating statistic because this kind of issue can be easily resolved if someone actually cared about the food waste problem (Clearer label plan in bid to reduce food waste). In effect, U.K.’s food department are attempting a new way to improve labelling to prevent edible food to go into the garbage. With this in mind, the waste agency decided to stop using complicated labels such as saying that milk can only stay 3 days in the fridge after opening but as a matter of fact it could actually stay much longer. The plan is that to replace the phrase “sell by” and start using “display by” because through this, consumer will have an idea when the food is bad to eat. Overall, this will teach people that food are still safe to eat even after the sell date and the only downside to it is that it’s less fresh than
The food that they throw away first goes to the dumpsters and then they end up in landfills. This is also where the dumpster divers, or “scavengers” as Eighner prefers to be called, begin their search for food (353). Where he mostly found a great deal of dumpsters was in the city. As he puts it, “the land is now covered with cities,” which means that there will be an abundance of trash that needs to be disposed of (361). This leads to more landfills needed to be made and that takes a toll on the earth. Dockterman has stated that “the buildup of decomposing organic material accounts for 16% of environmentally harmful methane emissions in the U.S.;” these emissions go into the atmosphere that we breath our oxygen from (Dockterman). Not only does this practice affect people survival-wise, but also the earth that billions of people live
Michael Pollan makes arguments concerning the eating habits of the average American. Pollan suggests, in spite of our cultural norms, we should simply “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”
Among them are: Individuals waste some $14.6 billion worth of food every year, about 47 per cent 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. 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 a farm, before even entering the broader 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, the paper says one 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. And cruise liners are the worst culprit, generating the highest per capita food waste. Waste like that costs everyone, not just the person who bought the food and the person who made it. The report estimates that what it calls "avoidable"
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
In the article Food Waste is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says, by Ron Nixon, food waste is described as being a serious matter and an environmental issue. This article describes that food waste is affecting the whole world and the people in it. People in poverty are struggling to have enough to eat while tons of food is being thrown away. “About 60 million metric tons of food is wasted in the United States… about 3.3 metric tons of it end up in landfills”. About a third of all the food made in the world is disposed of and never eaten. Organizations are trying to take action and stop the waste of food. The food that is abandoned is more than enough to feed all of the world’s 870 million hungry people. The food waste
In the United States thousands of pounds of food are thrown out each year from grocery stores. The primary reason food products are thrown out has little to do with consumability. It has to do with the little black numbers branded on every bottle, bag, and box proclaiming when a store should sell the labeled product by. When the date on the box is reached, the product is thrown away and no longer sold; however, most times the product is still able to be consumed and sellable. Another factor that contributes to unnecessary food waste is image. In stores, produce such as vegetables and fruit are often thrown away if they are considered to be” ugly” because who would want an “ugly” carrot or tomato. However, there are people who would gladly take
Food to many of us is a very important necessity that doesn't cross our mind of having much value, but food is what fuels us it's what keeps us alive and to even think some people struggle to put food on the table is disgusting and inhuman, it means these people are struggling to live all while America is wasting around 40% of its food supply. As humans, we have a responsibility to take care of our fellow human's, everyone has the right to live but they won't be able to live if they die from hunger. It's important to understand why we as humans waste so much food because once we know then we also know how to stop.
In a time when money and food is a scarcity for many, it is absolutely shameful the amount of food we throw away. The average American family spends $2,000 of food it does not eat and throws out about 25lbs of food a month for a family of four. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization report on food loss, the direct economic consequences to producers of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually. In the United States, businesses and consumers combined lose as much as $198 billion per year because of wasted food (Venkat, 2011).
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
Food waste affects humans, it is also affecting the environment. The more food we throw out, the more we have to grow. The more we grow, the more nutrients we take out of the earth. The more we waste, the
Food waste is huge issue these days. It is a huge amount of waste that ends up in landfills and can have lasting effects on the environment. One of major issues of food waste is the greenhouse gases that it produces. Methane gas is the main culprit when it comes to the gases being released. This can absorb infrared radiation and heat up the earth’s atmosphere and cause climate change. Another issue that food waste causes is, water loss due to use for production of fruits and vegetables.
Food Preservation is the ways to retain the food quality in a longer times. It is to prevent the food decomposition and fermentation. Besides that, food preservation not only to prevent the food getting spoilt in a long period of time but also preserved the colour, taste and the food nutritive value. Nowadays, food preservation has become more and more important component in the food industry as the consumers expect that able to purchase those foods that are out of season or imported from other countries. Furthermore, there are few reason why food preservation is important in our daily life such as preservation foods when they are in season it may added variety choices in our meals for example smoke meats and
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, ...
Wastewater is the combination of water-carried or liquid wastes starting in the sanitary conveniences of dwellings, industrial or commercial facilities. In addition to this, surface water, groundwater and storm water may also be present. It is any water that has been badly affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It contains waste from residential, industrial and commercial processes. Municipal water contains industrial wastewater, sewage and gray water. Gray water is the water from sinks and showers. Large industries also produce wastewater.
Currently, magnitude amounts of waste materials generated from household and industries have become one of the main factors to cause environmental pollution. Especially, as for the leftover food, the portion of leftover food out of total wastes has been continuously increased. Increases in feed cost for animal production motivated to recycle leftover food into animal feed (Cho et al., 2004a). Recycling leftover foods into animal feed has become one of the most important.