Impact of food waste on the environment.: Understanding and Tackling the Global Crisis
Curries. Burgers. Sushi. Pizzas. Tortillas. As a species, food is central not only to our survival but also to our cultures. We love food. But as much as we love food, we also love to throw it away. This paradox has a significant impact on our environment and global food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that nearly one-third of all food produced for consumption is never eaten. In the U.S., the statistics are even more alarming—40% of the available food supply is wasted each year.
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
A report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) illustrates the magnitude of this problem: it's as if you bought five bags of groceries, only to leave two of them in the parking lot every time you shop. In this article, we will explore the causes of food waste. Impact of Food Waste on the environment , and potential solutions to this growing crisis. So today, we’re going to look at food waste with three questions: Why is excessive food waste happening? What are its environmental consequences? And how can we fix it?
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How the impact of food waste on the environment is danger.
If all the food currently getting thrown into the landfill every year was instead diverted into meals for those in need, we’d be able to feed as many as billion people. On top of that, food waste has been estimated to be responsible for roughly X% of global emissions. If food waste were a country, it would rank third, under China and the United States, for yearly greenhouse gas emissions.
So, Impact of food consumable waste is one of many issues at the crossing roads of climate action and social justice. Its large emissions footprint not only comes from all the energy needed to ship, process, and produce the food that ends up in the trash but also from the potent methane fumes that food emits as it decomposes in landfills.
But food doesn’t just sprout out of the ground and then magically end up in the trash, there is a long chain of business and consumer interactions that at any point might turn perfectly edible food into waste. Simply put, food transforms into trash in two general areas as it travels from farm to plate. Before the point of sale and After the point of sale.
Impact of food waste on the environment before the point of sale
Before food even reaches your shopping cart, a significant amount is lost along the way. As someone who has worked in various food-related roles, I’ve seen firsthand how the pursuit of perfect, aesthetically pleasing produce perpetuates unnecessary food waste. As a farmhand at a number of different farms, when I saw insect bites on arugula leaves or blemishes on peppers and tomatoes, I knew they were destined to rot. All that time, effort, and fuel wasted because the farm manager knew that better-looking produce will always sell over imperfect ones. These “cosmetically challenged” products, as they’ve come to be known, often end up left on the ground by harvesters or even make their way to landfills, adding to piles of food that decompose and generate harmful emissions.
But the aesthetics of produce are just one part of the picture. Market prices for food can also affect whether crops make it through the harvest. According to one recent study that analyzed on-farm food loss in California, X% of produce remains unharvested every year. That’s the equivalent of growing acres of cantaloupe and leaving acres of it to decay in the fields. According to an article from Civil Eats, this was the case with sixth-generation farmer Cannon Michael. Michael couldn’t “justify paying workers to pick [the cantaloupe] because the cost of labor, packing, and shipping would have been more than the price he could get for the fruit.”
The Grocery Store and the Illusion of Abundance
Even if food makes it off farms, it still has to navigate the gauntlet of grocery store aisles. One of the best ways to sell food is through the illusion of abundance. People shop visually, and to most, the last apple on the shelf was left there because there was something wrong with it, not because it just happened to be the last one. To appear abundant, grocery stores often overbuy food to trick people into purchasing items. As a result, produce inevitably goes to waste as it sits out all day like glorified window dressing.
Farmer Delaney Zayac explains this dilemma in the documentary Just Eat It: “If this was what I had and there was an hour left in the market, that one bunch of chard would sit there, and no one would buy it. But if I had bunches of chard all bursting out, I'd probably sell bunches of chard.” In grocery stores and farmers' markets, vendors face an uphill battle against the old saying, “Pile it high and watch it fly.” They need to produce an excess of food to sell their goods, but that excess can at times lead to more waste.
Below there is a table to note the points about food waste.
Category | Sub Category | Points |
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Environmental Impact: |
Climate Change
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Waste. Food Waste and Global Warming.Methane Emissions from Landfills. |
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Resource Depletion |
Water Footprint of Food Waste Land Use Impact of Food WasteEnergy Consumption and Food Waste |
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Food Waste in Landfills. Leachate Contamination.Methane Production in Landfills. |
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Biodiversity Loss |
Food Waste and Agriculture. Habitat Destruction due to Food Production.Biodiversity Impact of Food Systems. |
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Economic Impact |
Food Security |
Food Waste and Global Hunger. Impact of Food Waste on Food Insecurity.Food Loss and Food Availability. |
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Economic Loss |
Cost of Food Waste to Businesses. Household Food Waste Costs.Economic Impact of Food Waste on the Supply Chain. |
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Increased Food Prices |
Food Waste and Food Inflation. Impact of Food Loss on Food Prices. Supply Chain Disruptions and Food Costs. |
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Social Impact |
Food Insecurity |
Social Equity and Food Waste. Impact of Food Waste on Vulnerable Populations.Food Waste and Poverty. |
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Inequity |
Unequal Distribution of Food Resources. Access to Food and Food Waste. Social Justice and Food Waste . |
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Ethical Concerns |
Food Waste and Ethical Consumption. Sustainability and Food Waste.Social Responsibility and Food Waste. |
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other categories |
Sustainable Food Systems |
Food Waste Reduction Strategies. Sustainable Food Production and Consumption.Circular Economy and Food Waste. |
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Food Recovery |
Food Donation and Food Banks. Composting and Food Waste.Anaerobic Digestion and Food Waste. |
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Household Food Waste Prevention. Food Waste in Restaurants.Food Waste in Retail. |
Household Food Food Waste Reduction Strategies
After the point of sale, balanced food makes the impact of food waste on the environment continue. Household, restaurant, and food service waste account for X% of the United States' annual food waste. As a consumer and lover of food, I’ve tried hard to minimize my waste, but it’s easy to cook or buy excess that ends up in the compost or trash. For a family of four, household food waste costs X dollars annually. With the average plate size expanding by X% since Year, and refrigerators growing X% in volume since Year, it’s tempting to buy more food just to fill up the space.
Overbuying, and the inevitable “cleaning out the refrigerator” activity that comes with it, can also be attributed to buy-one-get-one promotions or purchasing in bulk. Our appliances, supermarkets, and even our plates are all nudging us to buy more. In addition to overbuying, in the United States, there is also a severe lack of clarity when it comes to dealing with expiration dates and spoiled goods. There are no federal laws regulating sell-by or expiration dates. As a result, labels can mean basically anything depending on where you buy your food. In Missoula, Montana, for example, milk’s sell-by date is set at X days after pasteurization, even though the standard is X days. That’s because, in most cases, these dates are set by the milk producer and not a regulatory service.
As one grocery vendor in Missoula laments, “The X-day sell-by date tells a consumer nothing; it’s just an arbitrary number somebody came up with with no scientific backing whatsoever.” This lack of clear information regarding when a product actually goes bad means that households throw out perfectly edible food well before it expires.
In short, there are marketing, labeling, cultural, and psychological forces all coming into play to make food waste a large problem in the United States.
Solutions to the impact of Food consumable Waste
Ultimately, there are many vectors by which food becomes waste, whether in your own home or even before it makes it onto a grocery store shelf. But there is hope. There are very tangible solutions to these problems at all levels of the supply chain.
At the individual level, solutions look like creating a plan to use all the food you buy, or using sites like Eat by Date to truly understand whether your food has expired, and then composting it instead of throwing it in the trash. You can even get involved with groups like Food Not Bombs, which has local chapters all over the world that recover food from local restaurants and stores and give it to those in need.
On the supply side, solutions look like reducing food demand by eliminating buy-one-get-one promotions, donating food that’s not fit for sale, or even using boxes and props to maintain the illusion of abundance without needing excess produce. And on a policy level, this means actions like standardizing expiration dates to accurately reflect the science behind foodborne illnesses.
Conclusion: A Call to Action Against Food Waste
The impact of Food waste on the Environment is a preventable problem. Addressing food waste means tackling both climate change and hunger in the process. We don’t necessarily need fancy farming technologies to create more food for people who go hungry; we need to work together on every level to more equitably distribute the resources we already have. In doing so, we not only mitigate climate change but also create stronger, more connected communities.
Let’s take action and work towards a world where no food goes to waste. The solution lies within all of us—one meal at a time.
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