Controversy Over Leftover Food And Its Effects On The Environment

Precious Becerra

English 101

Professor Dreilling

(Essay 3)

Have you ever thought of the process of where your half eaten salad, burger or any of your leftover food ends up after tossing it? Many people don't realize just how harmful food waste is to the environment, and just how many problems it causes. According to the studies by Environmental Protection Agency,“33 million tons of food makes its way to landfills each year.” You may not even think twice on how much of an impact throwing out leftover food affect our environment but Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) states that for “every ton of food wasted results in 3.8 tons of greenhouse gas emissions”. Also financially wasting food is extremely expensive to dispose. The

Many grocery stores will throw out food close to expiration dates, or around school campuses you'll see unwanted food on the trays or your mom throwing out the leftover food or even throwing out the slightly brown banana. This is all food waste and unfortunately it's the biggest issue facing America. Each year landfills are increasing with wasted food making the environment bad. The USDA study finding show that, “In the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten.” If these numbers of how much food is being wasted are hard to wrap around your head, just imagine how many plates of full course meals 133 billion pounds of food can

Ever think about how your leftover wasted food is getting decomposed in the landfills?Bet you never thought it can be as harmful as in throwing away trash. The decomposition of food and other organic waste in landfills produces methane, which is defined in Dictionary.com as a “colorless, odorless, flammable gas, CH 4, the main constituent of marsh gas and the firedamp of coal mines, obtained commercially from natural gas.” It is said that landfills are the largest human-related source of methane in the United States. According to Environmental Protection Agency, “food waste that goes to the landfill breaks down anaerobically and produces methane; methane is 21 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.” If we cut back on throwing out good food, the CO2 emissions can be equal to one in five cars off the road.One of the first major steps we can do is to start composting, instead of sending the food to landfills. Cities could start having recycling bins just for food waste, and the food could be taken to be composted or broken down for biogas. “By composting food we can reduce Methane emissions, resell the compost for farmers and crops, as well as break down the food to be made into biogas, which is a renewable energy that can be used for cars and could reduce CO2 emissions from 75 to 200 percent. The nitrogen in food would make it easy to compost quickly, and would help the planet immensely.” stated by