Now, an estimated one-fifth of all of the food produced in the world goes to waste. That is equivalent to approximately 1.3 billion tons of vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, legumes, and sausage which never leave the farm, either get dropped or spoiled through supply, or have been thrown off at resorts, grocery shops, restaurants, colleges, or home flats. It might have enough calories to nourish each undernourished individual on Earth.
But wasted food is not only a social or humanitarian issue — it is an ecological one. As soon as we waste food, then we additionally waste all of the electricity and water it requires to grow, harvest, transportation, and bundle it. And when food travels into the landfill and rots, it generates methane–a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide. Approximately 6%-8% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced when we quit wasting food. In the united states alone, the creation of wasted or lost food creates the equal of 32.6 million automobiles’ value of greenhouse gas emissions.
Since the planet’s population keeps growing, our struggle shouldn’t be the way to develop more food, yet to feed people while squandering that which we already create. Luckily, there are lots of activities we could take at the customer level to generate a considerable difference. From providing leftovers to people needing to freezing meals, shopping brighter, and composting to maintain inedible scraps from landfills, we could all take modest actions to curb our emissions.