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.
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.
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).
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.
All of us have most likely wasted food in one way or another, some people without thinking about it, others without caring. But when we scrape off our plates after a large meal, unable to finish the remaining’s because we’re too full, we rarely stop to think about the meaning and the consequences of our actions. It is said that about one-third of all the food we produce in the world is wasted. Therefore, food waste has quickly become a highly ranked global issue. It has become a serious problem in our society where the consequences are bigger than you might think.
Earth is the only habitable world we have with access to. If we squander its resources and destroy the atmosphere we have no other worlds to turn to. And yet like maggots, we consume with little care for the damage we cause. Award winning author and food activist Tristram Stuart wrote about the scandalous way in which we waste food. Stuart observes that supermarkets waste large amounts of food every day. Because the store owners fear lost sales, they do not give the wasted food away. Instead most of it ends up in landfills, where it is consumed by anaerobic bacteria releasing methane gas into the atmosphere. It isn’t just the destination of this waste that is worrisome. Because we waste so much food, production needs to be far greater than
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
Preview: I have decided to research food waste that exists in our world. First I will talk about the problem of food waste and how it affects everyone. Second I will be talking about how the food waste is being done at an alarming rate. Lastley I will talk about solutions to this problem.
Starch extraction yield enormous waste water that pose enormous environmental pollution unless well disposed. The annual starch residue waste in China is above 2milion tons sweet potato residues, which contain more than 10% of the total dry matter in sweet potato (Wang et al. 2016). The notable waste management methods include: landfills, incineration, recovery, plasma gasification, composting, energy recovery or avoidance, choice of method depends on countries level of development and availability/affordability of the technology (Grönroos 2010). Food wastes are rich in plant cell wall which consist of pectin, cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose. In effort to make use of Sweet potato residues, Yang et al, assessed then as possible substrate for tetracycline production (Yang and Ling 1989), in the recent past Lu et al, assessed bio-functional value of sweet potato residues in rats (Lu et al. 2015), moreover, the material was recently tested for lactic acid production (Yu-ting et al. 2016). Besides, the materials bioethanol production ability was assessed with good success (Wang et al. 2016).
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.
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
The previous data focuses on the food waste environmental impact based on the odor impact, greenhouse gas emission as methane and nitrogen, food waste effect on climate change, and food waste management. According to, Tsai et al., report the investigating the critical odorants of the emission from food waste composting plants and their human olfactory effect in general concentration ranges presented by olfactometric results. The article determine that the critical odorants were made by the analysis of multiple compounds in odor samples collected inside and outside the plants using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and gas detector tubes. The results of study indicated that six critical odorants were found in the fields consists of Ethylbenzene, Dimethylsulfide, Trimethylamine, p-cymene, ammonia, and acetic acid. The result found the Ethylbenzene, Dimenthylsulfide, Trimethylamine and p-cymene are lower amount on odorant criteria but high concentrate of gases emission. While ammonia is non-correlate on concentration, acetic acid is lower concentration but significant on odorant. Trimethylamine is the best critical odorant on the greenhouse gas emission. The study discussion didn’t study only indicated the specific olfactory effect patterns for the critical odorants emitted from food waste composting plants, but provided the practical information for the odor control engineering to judge the elimination priority. This article