Week Two Learning Team Assignment

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.

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.

About fifty million Americans are not certain when their next meal will be and in a society filled with food insecurities, the fact there this so much food waste is perplexing (King, 2015). Around the world, about two billion tons of food is wasted through production, transportation, distribution and retail, and post consumer (Glickman 2013). This amount of food

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.

Reducing CO2 emissions is an important part of a sustainable community, but changes in human behaviors are necessary to ensure these goals are met. An estimated 9.3 acres of farmland are lost every day in and around Austin. As of 2014 less than 1% of the food consumed in the region is produced locally, and of the food imported an estimated 97 thousand tons enters the landfill. This has a value of nearly $200 million. A great method for reducing food waste is composting, in the region approximately 1,837 tons, or 1.9% of the total waste, is being turned back into the soil. This is a part of Austin’s “field to fork” food system that addresses the growth, distribution, consumption, and recovery of food. Locally growing all food consumed in the region not only reduces transportation

I worked at Real Canadian Superstore from last five months and the amount of food they throw away every day is pretty huge. I don’t feel good throwing food every day but I have to do it on regular basis. Supermarkets throwing away vast amount food every day and on the other side some people are not getting two meals a day. Once I asked my manager why we throw this much food if we can donate it? The answer I got was shocking, he told me that we are here to do business, not community service. Not only supermarkets but farmers and individuals too are responsible for increasing food waste problem. This has both negative on the environment and the waste of our resources. Food

Now, more than ever, people are wasteful of the one thing we require most; food. We dispose of food at such a rate that it literally becomes waste which others

Most food is wasted in homes because of various reasons like for example, “improper storage, mistaken or unnecessarily strict interpretation of expiration dates, and poor meal planning, purchasing, or cooking practices” (“Food Waste”). Not only does food waste money on an economic

A growing issue about food waste is at hand in Canada, and citizens should seek methods in order to reduce this. Personally I think people are blindfolded as to how much they are contributing to this matter and the future consequences they may face. At the rate this issue is escalating it is affecting the planet adversely, therefore efforts should be made by each individual. To reduce food waste, it is necessary to be organized which could be done so by preserving, shopping better and visibility.

Second, one the thing that I will be talking about in this paragraph will be about how doing composting would like are lives a lot easy would be you would not have to cleaning the dishes at all and when the teenagers were done with their breakfest they would have tray that was made out of paper and then you would throw the tray and food in the trash. Some would say would not be a good idea because student would not responable with throwing trash away, but could be true, but for example in Clovis high school they have a student servise and the student that were in trouble they would clean up the smell outside the school.

“Reducing food waste in the United States requires changes in the way it is produced, stored, processed, distributed and consumed.”

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

Even in big cities where composting plants are accessible, many believe there is no demand for the final product of composting. At this time, most of the U.S. composting plants are small. Although in some regions, the composting industry is gaining popularity and interest from many investors across the nation. Marketing development, higher procurement participation rate programs, and economic incentives are all being implemented to help persuade composting. The state of Connecticut is currently offering six million dollars in loans or grants to the composting industry (Platt 9). Some even believe the demand for compost will increase so much, regulatory action and mandates will be unneeded. But until then, any food waste landfills bans and other composting requirements have to be considered (Leubsdorf).

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.

The issue of food waste is one that many people might not consider to be serious, but it is critical to the environment that a solution is devised. Fortunately, there are many simple things that people all over the world can do to keep the Earth healthy. First, if farmers and agricultural employees would prevent overgrazing, pesticide pollution, and over plowing, water would be saved, and the general health of the