While one in seven people across the globe are undernourished and there are increasing food shortages and skyrocketing food prices across the globe, the U.S. and other developed nations discard “staggering” amounts of food every day, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year—approximately 1.3 billion tons—gets lost or wasted, according to the FAO report Global Food Losses and Food Waste, which was released this past May.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that Americans are responsible for a sizable portion of that waste—more than 34 million tons of food was tossed in the U.S. in 2009, which amounted to more than 14% of the nation’s total municipal solid waste stream. Paper is the only material category where Americans generate more waste, but while 60% of paper is recycled every year only 3% of food scraps are recycled into compost—the remaining 97% is sent to landfills where it rots and produces harmful methane gas. Last year, the United Kingdom threw out 8.3 million tons of food—that’s enough leftovers to fill 4,700 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to anti-waste organization Wrap. And some 5.3 million tons of this food was still edible.
Source: The Environmental Magazine
By Lindsey Blomberg