About 30 percent of the 430 billion lbs of food produced in the United States is wasted, an incredible statistic, especially given the lack of landfill space, not to mention the global menace of world hunger.
The shocking statistic gives a new meaning to the term ‘junk
food,’ as Americans are sending 133 billion lbs (60 billion kg)
of food to the garbage dump each year. To put it another way, 141
trillion calories annually – or 1,249 calories per capita daily –
went uneaten in the United States, according to a report by the
US Department of Agriculture.
The top three food groups in terms of the amount of total food
loss cost are ranked as follows: meat, poultry, and fish (30
percent); vegetables (19 percent); and dairy products (17
percent). Retail food waste, for example, in grocery stores and
restaurants, accounted for 10 percent (43 billion lbs), while
consumer losses amounted to 21 percent (90 billion pounds) of the
available food supply.
The issue of food loss is becoming a serious topic not just in
the United States, but across the world as countries struggle
with mounting levels of garbage, while food scarcity among an
exploding world population demands a new way of thinking about
eating habits.
In 2010, the average American spent $4,016 on food (both for
at-home and away-from-home consumption) out of an average
disposable income of $36,016, the report, titled ‘The
Estimated Amount, Value and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses
at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States’,
noted.
Meanwhile, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, more than one-third of US adults (35.7 percent) are
obese, which is perhaps the best argument that Americans can
offset a large part of the food waste problem by simply eating
less. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the US was
$147 billion in 2008; the costs of providing medical assistance
for individuals who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of
normal weight, thereby placing an enormous strain on healthcare
costs.
At the same time, the problem of global food scarcity is gaining
the attention of world leaders.
“The United Nations predicts that the world population will
reach 9.3 billion by 2050, and this will require a 70 percent
increase in food production, net of crops used for biofuels.
Currently…the number of food-insecure people reached 802 million
in 2012,” the report stated.
The USDA warned that developed countries like the United States –
where 49 million people lived in food-insecure households out of
a total population of over 305 million - should not take their
current level of food security for granted.
“Although most of this population growth will occur in
developing countries, developed countries like the United States
also face issues of hunger and food insecurity,” it said.
In an effort to attract attention to the problem of food waste,
the USDA and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last
year kicked off the US Food Waste Challenge. The United Nations’
Environment Program’s (UNEP) World Environment Day’s central
theme was also food waste.
The report acknowledged that tackling the problem is no easy
challenge given the many diverse places where food is
distributed, consumed and disposed of.
There are an estimated 119 million households, over a half a
million dining establishments, including fast-food outlets, and
numerous other locations where people gather to eat, such as
schools, institutions, and prisons across the United States, it
said.
Eco-hazardous habits
A largely ignored problem associated with our intensely urbanized
lifestyles is how to get rid of our food waste in a way that does
not inflict long-term damage on the environment. Discarding
uneaten food into plastic garbage bags and burying them in
landfills only exacerbates the problem.
According to statistics by the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), food waste accounted for 34 million tons of some 250
million tons of municipal solid waste in the United States in
2010, with a price tag of about $1.3 billion.
After recycling a number of materials, like metals, plastic and
paper, food waste came out on top in terms of what is overloading
our garbage dumps, with 21 percent of the total, according to the
EPA.
The most worrying problem with landfilling food waste is that it
generates methane gas as it decomposes anaerobically. Methane is
21 times more powerful in accelerating global warming than carbon
dioxide, according to the EPA as cited in the USDA report.
Landfills account for 34 percent of all human-related methane
emissions in the United States
The report pointed to a growing human footprint on the planet as
a good reason for nations to start addressing this issue.
The report offered some suggestions on addressing the issue,
including expanding on community composting programs, of which
there are around 3,510 such initiatives in the US that allow
neighborhood residents to leave food scraps and yard trimmings at
the curb for a special collection.
At the same time, companies will work to offset food waste if
“it is economically justifiable, that is, if the benefits
outweigh the costs.”
The report suggested the potential advantages of building
“consumer goodwill” for business, using by way of
example “a sandwich shop donates uneaten yet wholesome food
to a community feeding organization at the end of each day.”