All Over America, There Is A Growing Problem, And That

Sending food to landfills generates an enormous amount of methane. In 1996, the EPA started to take action to deal with this problem. The EPA forced those largest landfills to install gas-collection systems in order to reduce air pollutant (Bloom 16). They would collect those methane and then “convert that captured methane into energy and, sometimes, renewable energy credits" (Bloom 17). However, today, more than half of all landfills keep letting those methane escape because they are the small and medium-sized landfills, they are not asked to collect methane (Bloom 17). According to Bloom, even though some of the landfills collect methane, they would just simply burn it off (17). This process of handling does reduce the methane, but it produces a large amount of less harmful carbon dioxide, which is also a part of greenhouse gases (17). The more greenhouse gases are produced, the warmer earth will become. From the lecture slides, we know that increases in greenhouse gases are changing our world profoundly. It will cause the dramatic events happened more frequently and it will badly affect

Food Waste is a major issue in the United States. It takes up much needed room in landfills, it is a financial burden, and it contributes to the rise in hunger.

One of the ways food is unnecessarily wasted is through the USDA’s grading of produce based on cosmetic value. Produce with cosmetic imperfections are valued at a lesser price and thus often farmers will not even make the effort to sell produce that has nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it is “ugly” (Glickman, 2015). Furthermore, businesses are required to throw out food that has passed its expiration date. However, expiration dates tend to be quite random and often have little truth to them (Glickman, 2015). They are simply to be used as estimates but end up adding to the amount of food waste. And all the food waste lands in landfills that cause the release of methane gas into the earth’s atmosphere. In fact, food waste which is categorized as organic waste is the primary source of methane gas (Baussan et. Al,

There is enough food waste in America to fill up 730 football stadiums. Yet, ironically there were almost 50 million people who live in households that are food-insecure in 2013. Thus, it is critically important to help reduce (or at the very least reevaluate) the amount of food that is wasted so it can be used to help those who can’t always afford it, or, help to reduce the impact of methane released by landfills, or, help to use less resources gone into making the produce.

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Have you ever walked around a school campus just minutes after the lunch break? Well if you have, you may have observed the absurd amount of wasted food spilling out of trash cans and scattered around the concrete floors. It makes you realize how much food we waste daily, and how preventable that is. With that, it is mandatory that Mills High School should be required to have composting and more recycling bins around campus, this would be beneficial to our planet and the upcoming generations.

One way to look at it is “[i]f food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, after China and the U.S” (Royte). It’s impacting the world and most of us aren’t even seeing that because once it's in the trash or garbage disposal, it’s out of sight, out of

Should schools start having compost at school to help with the reduce the trash of uneaten foods and put it to good use? I think that schools should start doing that because it will help a lot and the compost could be something useful if they need it to grow plants or put better soil in the plants that they already have. Having a compost a school will be a lot work but even it is a lot of work I'm pretty sure that a group of people would be happy to do that work to help the school and help the landfills with trash that some of it can be made into a compost to help the environment. Schools would be helping a lot more things than just reducing the amount of trash that goes into the landfills. Schools should allow a compost to be made even though it might take some taking care of to get it going and keep it going so it can be useful if you are willing to put in time for it.

According to the documentary “Just Eat It”, 1 in 6 Americans do not have enough money to feed themselves or their families do not have the proper funding for food. According to worldfoodday.org more than a trillion dollars are lost due to wasted food and the water supplied to cultivate the crops grown by farmers. According to an expert on the documentary, ‘Just Eat It’, water used by farmers to grow these uneaten crops can serve as drinking water for more than 500 million people. Based on the appearance of the fruit, a California farm, that grows an estimated 1/3 of the peaches for many Georgia peach farms, discards approximately 70% of its harvest. This percentage is only for the fruit that makes it into the factory from the peach orchard. Most stores throw away food that is within three days of the sell by date. The sell by date does not indicate when the food is bad only when it won’t be at its “best”. 97% of the food in America that is disposed of by being dumped into landfill. As the food decays in these numerous landfills, it creates methane gas which adds to the greenhouse effect. This is 21 times more damaging than greenhouse gas than CO2 according to endhunger.org. Not only does methane gas have a negative impact on our environment it is also extremely flammable.

There are billions of people struggling every day to have enough to eat, and billions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is gaining increasing awareness as a serious environmental and economic issue. Research shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million tons of it end up in landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local government this economic crisis is worldwide! My research estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s hungry people, but it is not just those countries that have problems with food waste, it is also an issue in African countries like South Africa. The problem is expected to grow worse as the world’s population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like global warming, experts say, with the production of food consuming vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

While the world’s farmers produce enough food to feed the planet, one-third of the food produced for human consumption is not really consumed. Globally, there exists up to 1.3 billion metric tons of uneaten food very year. And in addition to that, growing and transporting that food is estimated to create 3.3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, which makes wasted food one of the world’s largest emission contributor.

There are billions of people struggling every day to have enough to eat, and billions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is gaining increasing awareness as a serious environmental and economic issue. Research shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million tons of it end up in landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local government this economic crisis is worldwide! My research estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s hungry people, but it is not just those countries that have problems with food waste, it is also an issue in African countries like South Africa. The problem is expected to grow worse as the world’s population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like global warming, experts say, with the production of food consuming vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent

The everyday American on average wastes an astonishing twenty pounds of food each month (Gunders). Food waste is defined, as food that was intended for human consumption but was never eaten. Food waste in America is a massive problem; perfectly edible food is spoiled and discarded at every section of the food supply chain, which causes severe consequences for the environment and the economy. If Americans wasted 5% less food, the country as a whole would save fifty million dollars yearly (Hall). Not only would reducing food waste help save money but also it would immensely help climate change, as decomposing food in landfills creates methane gas. CO2 is known as the main culprit of climate change however; although methane gas is less talked

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food wastage, “food produced and not eaten,” emits enough greenhouse gasses (GHG) to be ranked third amongst global emitters (FAO 2013, 6). In New York City (NYC) it is estimated that businesses “produce more than 650,000 tons of food waste annually” (Turso 2017). This specific food waste is classified as food scrap, cooked food which is still edible, but no longer useful to the business due to a myriad of reasons. Whatever the reason may be for the company, this tonnage of food has the potential and possibility of being recovered for redistribution to food banks, soup kitchens, and other food rescue organizations. For example, two of the largest organizations in NYC, City Harvest and Food Bank NYC, will collect around 59 million and 24 million pounds in 2017 respectively, of unprocessed/non-perishable food. This is equivalent to about 42 thousand tons or 6.5 percent of annual food waste from scraps. Despite having warehouses, fleets of vehicles, and numerous volunteers, two of the largest organizations barely make an impact on the total amount of food rescued versus food wasted.

There are countless issues that pose danger to the environmental health of the Earth, but one of the most often overlooked problems is food waste. Food waste contributes to droughts as well as other serious economic and climate ramifications. However, there are many things that can be done to resolve this pressing issue.