The United States is poised to finally address its food waste problem with legislation. On Wednesday, the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency are announcing the first ever food waste reduction goals of the country, Marketplace reported.
According to Department of Agriculture statistics, 90 billion pounds of edible food gets thrown away per year. This massive amount of wasted food has serious effects to society and the environment. Dana Gumbers, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that the organic matter deposited in landfills is a major contributor to methane gas-a known greenhouse gas.
"Methane is a greenhouse gas that is about 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its global warming potential," she says. Gumbers adds that leftover food that goes to a compost pit, as compared to a landfill, gets turned and aerated and that the decomposition process produces much less methane.
Global warming has become more real to people in recent months with unprecedented weather conditions defying historical patterns. This, in turn, makes the effects even more amplified. Droughts, floods, storms and hurricanes, melting ice caps, and the death of biodiversity are just a few of the impacts that global warming has caused.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are many practical benefits to reducing food waste. First, there is the economic aspect of less expense on food. Second is the reduced methane production already mentioned above.
Third, energy and resources are conserved by preventing pollution in the growing, manufacturing, transporting, and selling of food products across the country. Lastly, perfectly edible food can be used to support the rest of the community which can have access to food that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Besides, food waste costs taxpayers a whopping $162 billion. This number is taken from the cost of using fresh water, cropland, and fertilizer, among others, to produce food that eventually just gets thrown away, according to Waste Management World.
