In a world where millions of people go to bed hungry with no idea of where their next meal will come from, food waste should be a taboo. Unfortunately, it’s not — every year, more and more food items don’t make it to someone’s plate and instead end in landfills.
Beyond the moral and ethical issues, wasting food also has significant environmental impacts. If you’re serious about minimizing your ecological footprint, this area deserves special attention.
How Food Waste Affects Environmental Sustainability
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates around 14% of food is lost at farms. Another 17% goes to waste at the retail and consumer levels. Put another way, picture 23 million 40-tonne trucks full of food items all headed to a dump site. Such actions are bound to have repercussions on the environment.
Water Waste
Discarding perfectly edible food also means throwing away all the valuable resources that went into producing it — land, water, electricity, time, storage and transport facilities, and more. Water waste is a particular concern, given its scarcity. It takes 100 buckets of water to produce a loaf of bread, six buckets to grow one potato and dozens more to rear a single chicken. All that water just wasting away is unsustainable.
Carbon Emissions
It can be difficult to eliminate food waste in landfills due to their high water content. Therefore, incineration typically requires more energy, which can lead to a significant increase in air pollution. Rotted food is also responsible for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to releasing methane and other harmful gasses.
In addition to accelerating global warming, waste food results in putrid odors and increased vermin infestations. Consider also the emissions from transporting the food to the landfills, plus the amount of plastic packaging used to wrap them.
Higher Cost of Food Production
The more people waste food, the harder farmers have to work to produce more. This has put considerable strain on food production, especially in countries already struggling to feed their population.
In 2021, the UN requested $35 billion for humanitarian aid for 235 million people in 56 countries. The need for emergency relief and funding assistance increases each year, fuelled by growing populations, climate change and urbanization.
Strategies to Reduce Food Waste
Reducing your household’s food waste is a great place to start if you’re concerned about protecting the environment and want to make a difference. Many solutions to the climate change crisis require substantial investments and collaborative efforts, but this simply requires you not to buy more than you need.
Prepare the right portion sizes and store any leftovers properly. Follow proven preservation techniques such as freezing, drying and canning to reduce the likelihood of spoilage. Do these and you’ll be chipping away at the vast amount of food wasted daily.
Composting
This process accelerates the natural breakdown of organic matter, providing a nutrient-rich fertilizer for landscape plants and even farm crops. Some innovative companies are also taking advantage of composting to generate methane for energy generation. One example generator is in Massachusetts, which can power 40% of the local grid at full capacity.
Food Recovery Programs
Recovering surplus from restaurants, grocery stores and households can go a long way toward minimizing wasted food. Every year, food banks across the U.S. rescue around 3.6 billion pounds of food and redistribute it to those in need. This approach can limit the amount of perfectly good consumables that would have otherwise ended up in landfills.
Shorter Supply Chains
Foods transported over long distances will likely arrive in deteriorated conditions, increasing the likelihood of being discarded. Facilitating farming product access to consumers through rural-urban linkages and nearer farmers markets can minimize food waste at the source.
Cut Food Waste to Save the Environment
Food waste is a sustainability problem you and your household can address directly. Be part of the change and protect the planet by simply being mindful of your eating habits and taking deliberate action to reduce waste.
Jane works as the Editor-in-Chief of Environment.co where she covers topics including climate policy, renewable energy sustainability, the food industry & more!