Over ten billion chickens, cows, pigs, and lambs are being killed every year in the United States for food. If you lined up these animals and sent them into space, they would reach the moon and back five times. (Bittman) Of all of the animals, about half of them will never get eaten and instead thrown out. This shocking statistic only includes the waste of these four animals; imagine every other food added to this. The numbers add up- waste of food in America is a serious problem. Food waste is a growing epidemic because large amounts of food are being wasted worldwide, which also causes waste of other resources, and America is the biggest contributor.
It is unrealistic to eliminate waste, but food waste is a growing epidemic. It has caused, …show more content…
Everyday, America wastes enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. The 90,000 seat stadium in Pasadena, California. (Bloom) As many Americans have an idea of how big this stadium is, it can help one realize how much food is wasted throughout just the United States in one day on average. To help visualize, multiply that amount of food by 365, and that is how much food is wasted annually, and that is at least a bit of an eye-opener. Some of the negative impacts of all this waste were said previously, but there are still more, for example food waste that decomposes in a landfill generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. (FWRA) Food waste not only takes up land, resources, and habitats, but also contributes to the generation of methane. The average American creates almost five pounds of trash per day. Since, on average, 12% of what we throw away is or once was edible, we can estimate that each one of us discards half a pound of food per day. That adds up to 197 pounds of food per person. (Bloom). This shocking statistic will really make an American think- do I really waste this much? They will hopefully start to be aware of their waste and will possibly begin to do the small things to improve their waste. They could do anything from only taking what they’re hungry for to prevent excess leftovers that no one will eat to saving leftovers from a home-cooked meal or from a restaurant. There are many things one can do, especially in the United States, to reduce how much they
It is unrealistic to eliminate waste, but food waste is a growing epidemic. It has caused, …show more content…
Everyday, America wastes enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. The 90,000 seat stadium in Pasadena, California. (Bloom) As many Americans have an idea of how big this stadium is, it can help one realize how much food is wasted throughout just the United States in one day on average. To help visualize, multiply that amount of food by 365, and that is how much food is wasted annually, and that is at least a bit of an eye-opener. Some of the negative impacts of all this waste were said previously, but there are still more, for example food waste that decomposes in a landfill generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. (FWRA) Food waste not only takes up land, resources, and habitats, but also contributes to the generation of methane. The average American creates almost five pounds of trash per day. Since, on average, 12% of what we throw away is or once was edible, we can estimate that each one of us discards half a pound of food per day. That adds up to 197 pounds of food per person. (Bloom). This shocking statistic will really make an American think- do I really waste this much? They will hopefully start to be aware of their waste and will possibly begin to do the small things to improve their waste. They could do anything from only taking what they’re hungry for to prevent excess leftovers that no one will eat to saving leftovers from a home-cooked meal or from a restaurant. There are many things one can do, especially in the United States, to reduce how much they