How Food Waste is Harming our Environment

July 26, 2018 | 12:50 pm | Written by Zachary Sobol

Food waste is one of the more important issues facing the country, yet most people are not
aware of this pervasive issue and the impact it is having on our environment. According to a
recent study, food waste has increased by 50% since 1974. Forty percent of the food
produced in the United States ends up in a landfill or is left to rot in the field. More than 365
million pounds of food is wasted every single day, enough to fill an entire football stadium.
On a micro level, Americans are throwing out 15-25% of the food they purchase, which over
time equates to 400 pounds of wasted food per person, per year, with an estimated cost of
more than $200 billion.

One reason why Americans waste so much food is that we have very high standards for our
produce. If we see fruit or vegetables that aren’t flawless, we tend to just throw them out,
even though they are still perfectly fine. More than 20 billion pounds of fruit and vegetables
are not harvested simply due to the selective nature of consumer buying habits.

Another reason why there is so much food wasted is due to the fact that refrigerators have
grown in size by 15% since the 1970’s. This causes consumers to fill all of the space in their
refrigerators allowing for a greater chance of food becoming wasted. Often, individuals will
leave food in the back of the refrigerators and just forget about them. This food then is
thrown it and ends up in a landfill. Even the size of the average dinner plate has increased
by 36%, which results in larger servings and an increased chance that food will go to waste.

Individual consumers are not solely to blame. Food manufacturers, grocery stores, and
restaurants waste up to 52 billion pounds of food each year. While households are the cause
of 43% of food waste, consumer businesses make up 40% of food waste, with 16% coming
from farms, and 2% of food being wasted by manufacturers. Essentially, food is being
wasted at every level of the supply chain. From the farm, to distribution, to the grocery store,
and then finally at home, food waste is an inherent problem. The United Nations estimated
that, by 2050, an additional 42 million people will go hungry.

The Impact

According to Think Eat Save, most uneaten food ends up in the dump. When food waste
decomposes in a landfill without oxygen, this creates an anaerobic sequence that produces
the methane, which is approximately 20 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon
dioxide. This in turn contributes to the destruction of the ozone layer, which can lead to
higher temperatures around the globe.
Another dangerous outcome of so much food being dumped into landfills is the amount of
groundwater pollution it creates. When it rains on landfills, the water allows for toxic
chemicals, such as ammonia, to develop. These chemicals can leach into drinking water
supplies and could also reach bodies of water such as lakes or rivers, killing the living
organisms that inhabit those environments. Both groundwater and surface water are highly
polluted when in close distance from a landfill.

Just living near a landfill can cause harm to humans due to air pollution that has been linked
to respiratory diseases and even types of cancer. This is due to the fact that gases
produced from a landfill do not stay complacent, as they are able to find their way into
homes and businesses in the surrounding area. Due to the massive amounts of waste that is
left there, landfills have also been known to ignite large fires. This further allows for
dangerous chemicals to fill the air and pollute bodies of water. Wildlife such as birds and
mammals that scavenge for food at the dump are also at risk.

Additionally, 25% of all freshwater in the United States is used to cultivate food that is just
going to be thrown away. A pound of wheat flour, for example, contains 12% water, apples
contain 81% water, while meat needs 8 to 10 times more water than wheat flour. A single
burger takes up 660 gallons of water to be produced. From the immense amounts of water
being used in food that we eat everyday, correspondingly immense amounts of water are
being wasted from the food we throw out.

What Can We Do?

A common sense way to help prevent food waste is to create a better system for date
labeling on food products. According to ReFed, the standard date labeling practice causes
great confusion for Americans as to when to properly dispose of the food they buy from
grocery stores. The terms “use-by” or “best before” causes 90% of American to dispose of
fresh food, totaling up to 20% of consumer food waste. By changing the labels to terms
such as “Best if Used By”, or “freeze by” consumer will have greater clarity as to when they
should throw out their food.

Another possible solution to food waste is allowing the federal government to provide tax
benefits to businesses that actively donating food. According to ReFed, “up to $750 million of
additional annual federal tax deductions should be funded to achieve 380,000 tons of
additional donations: $620 million in incentives to farms would yield an additional 525 million
donated meals, while $130 million provided to restaurants and retailers would generate 115
million meals annually.” For businesses, it can be difficult to be able to fully coordinate
donating food items to food banks, which cause businesses to not donate food. Overall, this
plan would help recover an incredible 638 million meals. There could be issues as to how
the tax deductions would be distributed among the size of the business, and the state they
live in, but it should be clear that this plan would benefit society as a whole, allowing for it to
legitimately be beneficial in the eyes of politicians who would help enact the tax benefits.

In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a goal by 2030 to reduce
food waste by 50%. Meeting this ambitious goal would certainly help address the issues of
climate change, domestic and global hunger, and allow for the creation of more healthy and
organic food.

State and local governments can also attempt to help prevent food waste by being able to
promote the several ways residents can help out with this issue. Community compost areas,
for example, would provide a central location where everyone could deliver their organic
waste, instead of sending it to the landfill. Local businesses and restaurants can buy scales,
cameras and invest in phone apps that measure how much waste the respective business is
producing. Besides being able to prevent food waste, it allows for businesses to increase
their profits by wasting less and being able to show to the community they are actively trying
to be environmentally conscious.

Arguably the best course of action, however, is being able to advocate the harmful
consequences of food waste. Nonprofits and local governments could have a beneficial
impact on their local community by actively making awareness campaigns and teaming up
with businesses to make as many people as possible aware of the consequences of food
waste, and what they can do to prevent it. In the United Kingdom, the Waste & Resources
Action Programme (WRAP) created a national awareness campaign called “Love Food Hate
Waste” that, through the use of online and print advertising, helped successfully reduced
consumer food waste by 21% in just five years. While it is clear that food waste is an issue
that affects nearly everyone on the planet there still isn’t enough being done to prevent the
harmful environmental repercussions that could negatively affect the planet for decades to
come.

At Move For Hunger we strive to make sure that food waste is a thing of the past. Often
when people move, they just throw out any food that is in their home without giving a second
thought. That is where Move For Hunger comes in to help. With our network of more than
900 moving companies, we are able to collect millions of pounds of non-perishable food
items and deliver them to food banks across the United States and Canada. If you want to
help fight against food waste and the harmful environmental impact it creates team up with
Move For Hunger. There are several ways that you can help fight hunger across the country
with Move For Hunger such as starting a food drive, hosting a fundraiser, advocating for
hunger relief, and being able to volunteer at your local food bank.