Many people might believe that global famine exists nowadays just in extremely poor places of the world and in not so high levels when indeed local level famines have erupted in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America. Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That is about one in nine people on earth and the vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished. Which is even sadder is to think that actually the amounts of food to help solve this situation exists around the world and instead of been designated to contribute with the cause it is thrown to garbage. “40% percent of the food that is produced …show more content…
Industrialized nations like the U.S. and U.K. waste 1.5 trillion pounds annually and the average American family of four tosses over 1,160 pounds of food a year, that’s 1.2 million calories, enough to provide one person over 3,200 calories of food a day. One of the causes of this wasting issue according to Dan Nickey, associate director of the Iowa Waste Reduction Center, is that “It's so cheap to buy food [that] we just look at it as a given, that it will always be there — 'I can go buy more tomorrow,' " (Dan Nickey. (2014). These food waste statistics will make you think twice about what you throw out. De foxnews Sitio web: …show more content…
But we cannot only solve this, we can prevent bigger catastrophes, troubles that put in risk the preservation of the environment. Whenever we dump our food, we lost a big amount of the labor and natural resources that are used in the elaboration of food, being the last one commonly known as limited natural resources, such as water, and most of the time, fossil fuels that are used to provide energy to the different factories that work with food. “40% percent of the food that is produced in the U.S. never gets eaten” (Natural Resources Defense Council). This, of course, brings a lot of consequences for the environment. Another direct consequence from the food waste is that all the food that is thrown away with other types of garbage, decomposes without air, which produces high levels of methane, a greenhouse gas that is even more dangerous than CO2, because it catches even more heat in the atmosphere than the already mention gas. We can say that this is not only a problem related to famine, their effects are even deeper that we can
The USDA claims that each year, 25.9 million tons of America’s food is thrown away, the equivalent to a quarter of the total amount produced. Nationally, the wasted food is a damaging financial setback, amounting to $1 billion just to get rid of during a time of ascending food prices, nonetheless (Oliver, 2007). Food waste has skyrocketed since 1970 at an astonishing 50% increase rate, yet according to the FAO, one-sixth of America doesn’t get enough to eat.
With the seemingly unstoppable growth of the world’s population and a projected global population of nine billion by 2050, the matter of whether or not there will be enough food to support the world’s populace is brought into question (Parfitt, et al., 2010). However, amid the concern for an adequate food supply, there is an immense amount of food waste produced by the world, including the United States. In fact, “according to the Natural Resources Defense Council as much as 40 percent of all food produced in the United States never gets eaten and typically ends up in the landfills or goes unharvested in the field “(King, 2015).
While everyone may love to go out and enjoy a fine meal with friends and family, most will never stop to think the process of how the food came about, or the production thereof. John Oliver’s piece on “Food Waste” outlines all the problems of food waste and how they can impact society, animals, nature, and even the farmers who harvest the produce. America and its businesses should try to decrease the amount of food being wasted. By doing so, not only are we a contributing factor to help reduce waste, save time and money, but we are also aiding the less-fortunate in a society, while still saving natural resources and the planet as a whole.
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.
Although some people are not aware of this problem, generating food is quite expensive, because it wastes energy, fresh water and natural resources during its growth, package and delivering. Furthermore, some scientists have found that decomposing uneaten food produces high levels of methane emissions. The world's population is growing extremely fast. As a result, if humans keep on wasting food at the same pace as today, the waste of generating food will increase proportionally, (Kruszelnicki, 2012).
Looking at the Impacts of Food Waste, In general by wasting food that’s mean we are wasting our money but in different way. . At the same time it is impacting us financially it’s also playing a huge role in the problems we see happening to our environment. The US Environment Protection Agency said, “Generating food waste has significant economic as well as environmental consequences. Whether you’re an individual, family, or business, chances are a considerable portion of your budget goes towards buying food — either for you, your family, or your customers. And since we now throw away more food than anything else, that means we are throwing away a lot of our money.” (“Basics,” par. 2) They went on to say that wasting food does more than impact our economy; it also impacts our environmental severely. We need to look at other countries and see what they’re doing with their food waste mistakes and do them same in our country the
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.
Deaths of innocent people is always a pitiful sight one should behold. People who perhaps never knew their left hand and from their right, who maybe would not dare to harm a fly and whose hearts beat true in rhythm of being at peace with everybody. However, life is not always fair and circumstances and conditions subject people to lives that they had perhaps never imagined or even dreamt of. Madaya, Syria has been in the limelight and flashed in every newspaper headline throughout the world. One may ask, what the hell in the world would lead people to be merciless and beastly with no respect for mankind? What joy or fulfillment is there seeing mothers and their babies, children and the elderly dying from hunger caused not my natural famine, but artificial famine due to craving for power?
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.
So is the problem food waste itself, or that food is being thrown out when there are alternative options? Or is it that we just don’t stop to consider there is a problem? My concern is that it’s not a priority for most people. In addition, there are
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
If someone in the U.S buys 90 watermelons, how many of those watermelons will he throw away by the end of the week? According to organizations like the Food and Agricultural organization, one-third. Now 30 watermelons out of 90 are already is a wasteful example, but when considering the effect of the total amount around not only in the U.S but most developed countries food waste, it's an insane and ridiculous amount of loss. The effects of food waste have huge impacts, not only for the fact that the food being waste isn’t being provided to people in need, but it is also both a financial problem and environmental issue. A lot of organization trying to teach households how to reduce or even stop food waste, some have
Every year the planet loses 30 percent of its food, which is an astonishing 1.4 billion tons. This issue is faced by every developing and developed countries in the world. Food waste continues to grow at a rapid pace as population increases. The numerous causes of food waste occur at the stages of production, processing and retailing. Food waste is a highly critical issue that affects the world and many should understand the consequences this issue has on the environment.
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.
In America, we are constantly surrounded by abundance. Food is a prevalent waste item in the United States. Most people do not think about the resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food they throw away. Our food waste is not actually just trash; it is the key to human survival. Ordinary consumers can change the future with one small action: to stop wasting food. Actions at the individual level can decrease food waste and feed those in need. Twenty five percent of purchased food is thrown away. (TED) Often this is because food has spoiled, but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply, misread labels, or individual consumer shopping and eating habits. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdf