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
People may or may not realize that many of the goods tossed out are still in fresh conditions. Regularly, citizens would toss out fruits and vegetables (especially) because they look almost rotten or have a few bruises (Dockterman). Even the food people eat is judged on how perfect or flawed it is before they decide to ingest it. Along with regular people, the majority of grocery stores pick out the prettiest looking edibles to put in their displays and they even overstock to look “bountiful” (Dockterman). Then the stores would throw out the rejects, though still perfectly edible, and they would end up in dumpsters. While Eighner would be constantly reminded as to why the food was discarded, most of the foods he found were still edible
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
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...
Canadians waste $31 billion of food every year, 47% wasted in the home*. The primary contributor to consumer food waste is high expectations—demand for high-quality, aesthetically-pleasing food is a key factor behind the volume of food waste occurring among consumers.* In North America, over 30 percent of fruits and vegetables are rejected by supermarkets because they aren 't attractive enough for consumers. (*According to the Cut Waste, Grow Profit 2014 report.)
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.
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
In regards to the way food companies are regulated, the government must begin to actively attempt to regulate food production and ensure that companies attempt to donate food that they can no longer sell because it is past its expiration date. The Good Samaritan Act of 1997 states that no company can be sued if they donate a product to a food pantry that is past its expiration date, yet companies continue to throw millions of tons of food away every year. This would allow for the practices of freeganism to begin to impact a larger population because food pantries are less stigmatized than dumpster diving. Additionally, a change must occur in the way that the American public views food and how they make decisions. In order to make food access more uniform and to reduce senseless waste, a dramatic shift must occur. Society must move away from the acceptance of excessive waste, both on the level of the consumer and on the level of the company, and work to redistribute food in order to ensure that everyone is food
I ate normally the average 3 meals a day plus some snacking in between and what I found about my food waste habits was unexpected. Going into this experiment I estimated that I would throw about a regular bowl size of food away a week. I set up this small waste bin and dumped in my food after every meal separating the food from the trash . At the end of the first day my bin was just a little full maybe about 2 cups or so but thinking back it was a weekday and I tend to be really busy so it's hard to fit in a full on meal during the day. As the days went on the little green can sitting under my sink began to fill up. Finally a week has passed and the can was over full, it gave my kitchen this disgusting smell and it was sick to handle because of all the rotten food. I took it to my back yard and laid it down on a tarp. I put it on a scale and it read 5.632 lbs, I had almost 6 pounds of food thrown away. To take it into perspective six pounds is about 6 and a half meals of food per week that I have wasted, if each meal is about 14 ounces not including a drink. (Math on last page ). I concluded that I tend to throw away food when I eat less then what is served which is almost every meal. I also noticed that my mom usually prepares big meals that are meant to feed four people but usually have the ability to serve up to six people if not more.
I am really surprised to see that much food is being wasted by Walmart and other supermarkets. Which could be donated to Foodbanks. I think the reason food is being wasted because the customers buy food that tastes good, so they leave the food that doesn’t good like healthy food. ''Not saying that healthy food doesn’t taste good''. So the supermarkets have to throw it out because the people are not buying the food, and they put new stickers on it to extend the expiry date.
Annually, the US throws away over $100 billion in food waste. Compared to the number of people that are going hungry, the amount of food wasted is startling. A large amount of this waste comes from grocery stores having to throw away food that is still good because of sell-by dates. It is important to note that a sell-by date is not an expiration date, and this food is safe to eat. The food that the grocery stores would be throwing away would go to community food banks that people already on assistance programs can use for free. These food banks would be closer to populations that are far away from grocery stores, and the food banks would provide health benefits from food that contains less preservatives, sodium, and sugars. By continuing to provide funds for these populations to buy food with shelf lives that they can live on for months and supplementing that with free perishable food, the United States government would more effectively fulfill its obligation to the American
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 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 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.
According to Price et al. (1985), estimated values of the total global food loss and waste to around one third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption, amounting to about 1.3 billion tonnes (1.28×109 long tons; 1.43×109 short tons) per year . In developing countries, like Ethiopia it is estimated that 400-500 calories per day per person are gainful
Do you remember the days when we were constantly filling our kitchen trash cans with food waste? And, remember when that waste would rot and stink up the whole kitchen? If it wasn’t for garbage disposals, many of us would still be dealing with this issue. A garbage disposal is a great and effective way to handle common food waste in the kitchen. Disposals shred up waste, like uneaten food, into small pieces which makes it easy to pass through the drain pipe. They are also beneficial to the environment as it reduces waste. Did you know that about 20 percent of the environments waste consists of food scraps? Unlike the trash, when food waste is disposed in a garbage disposal unit it can be