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CJ Reed

Mrs. Anderson

English 111

1/17/2018

The Harms of Food Waste

Food: one of the few necessities in life. Without it humankind would cease to exist as we

know it, but despite this, Americans greatly undervalue food’s worth to our society. We throw

away more than 25.9 million tons of food each year, approximately worth 43 billion dollars

(Scientific American). The wasted food eventually makes its ways to landfills, further adding to

our country's high amount of pollution. Americans are largely ignorant of the massive quantities

of food waste they produce and the harms it will cause to the population and environment if

viable solutions to limit waste are not found.

Dictionary.com defines waste as, “Use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no

purpose” as well as, “To fail to make full or good use of.” Waste is most easily explained as

owning something and not using it or not using it to its full potential. My best friend loves to eat

pizza and has the ability to eat a lot of pizza. He ordered an entire pizza for himself, however,

shortly after eating a couple slices he realized he wasn't quite as hungry as he had imagined. He

then threw away the remaining pieces of pizza. These pieces of pizza that my best friend threw

away are a classic example of the way Americans waste perfectly good food. Even my mom

struggles to limit her waste. She loves to eat fruit and vegetables and buys large quantities of

them, but because of how quickly they go bad, she ends up throwing away substantial quantities

of produce. Waste is apparent every day, all over the earth but, especially as affluent Americans,

we waste substantially more food than any other country.

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In 2015 I had a sales internship with the Washington Capitals. Everyday on my way

towards the Verizon Center, I would pass numerous homeless people lying on the sidewalk

curled up in their thin blankets. Their eyes would stare longingly into mine as if asking for food

or money to appease their seemingly never-ending hunger. Like most people, I turned my head

and walked faster in order to get away from the sorrowful eyes. At the Verizon Center, it is

policy that midway through the third intermission all vendors must stop selling and close their

shops. There are very few things in the world I enjoy more than eating, especially eating for free,

so naturally when that beloved time in the game would come, I would mosey my way around the

stadium looking for possible places that would give out their leftover food for free. To my

dismay, it was many vendor’s policy to not allow the leftovers to be given away but that it was

mandatory that they throw away all remaining food. This was the case with the Dunkin Donuts

vendor. Everyday I would stroll past their store and watch in horror as they threw row after row

of delicious glazed doughnuts into the ominous black garbage bag. Frustrated at how illogical it

seemed that a company would rather throw away their product than give it away blew my mind,

especially when there was a community of homeless people not even a quarter of a mile from the

stadium.

The production of food takes a powerful toll on our environment. Wide spread demand

for palm oil, commonly used in granola bars and chips, required Indonesia to lose a quarter of its

lucious rainforest in order to produce the commodity (Leonard). The loss of the Indonesian

forests have lead thousands of indigenous species watching their habitat vanish before their eyes.

The companies that buy the palm oil, in turn, use the resource but quite frequently purchase more

than they use and end up throwing away large quantities of the oil; however, these companies

continue to over purchase because people are consuming their product at an ever increasing rate.
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Consumers, just like the companies, specialize at the art of over buying and throwing out way

more food than they realize. The same effects come from meat and produce production as the

production of the food harms the environment and then that environmental cost is wasted when

the food gets thrown out. More than 50% of waste occurs during production due to poor

infrastructure practices (Paslowiski). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) researched

waste in a number of countries and determined that the countries with higher incomes wasted

less in production but had a substantially higher amount of waste at the consumer level. Lower

income countries were the opposite, with most of their waste coming from their dysfunctional

production facilities.

The US is a prime example of the FAO’s research. Most US companies function

efficiently and limit as much waste as possible; however, insane amounts of waste occur at the

consumer level. The average American household throws out between 14 and 25 percent of all

food purchased. Virginia Beach Schools makes those numbers seem miniscule as they are

required by the state to have enough food at lunch to be able to feed every kid in the school.

With massive amounts of extra food, because of the large numbers of students bringing their own

lunches, it would make sense for VBS to find a charity to donate the remaining food to or a way

to make use of the massive amounts of extra food. Sadly, Virginia Beach Schools’ solution

proposes to throw the leftovers away. When asked by English teacher, Mrs. Anderson, they

explained that they were not able to give away the food because of their fear of possibly being

sued over the food quality. This is the same food that they are not only feeding to thousands of

growing kids but are making them pay for the lackluster food. Instead of increasing the quality

and decreasing the quantity of food, the school system continues to throw away hundreds of

pounds of food a day that could be put to good use.

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As devastating as just the fundamental concept of wasting is, it has even more

consequences than most Americans realize. About two thirds of the trash that goes to a landfill is

biodegradable. As the organic matter begins to decompose it releases Methane gas and other

gases into the air. Methane gas, an incredibly powerful gas, traps heat substantially better than

carbon dioxide and the other gases released by matter in landfills (Sciencing). This gas is 84%

more potent than carbon dioxide increasing the amount of heat being trapped in the Earth

exponentially (Skye). The Methane gas that gets trapped in the Earth heats the planet causing a

multitude of environmental disasters. Landfill’s production of such a devastating gas is not

common knowledge. Due to how much organic matter ends up in the landfill, it is necessary to

take action quickly before global warming continues to increase and cause even more harm to

our already reeling environment.

All of this waste not only rapidly increases our air pollution but it destroys all of the land

on and surrounding the landfills. There are currently 13,000 landfills in the US and

approximately 82% of landfill cells, the containers that hold the landfill, have had a leak of

some sort (Zerowaste). These leaks are extremely hazardous to the surrounding environment. As

rain falls on landfills, highly toxic runoff leaks out of the cells, thus contaminating the

surrounding soil and bodies of water These leakages can possibly kill off the biodiversity in the

affected areas (Sciencing). With such large amount of landfills in the US the amount of damage

to the surrounding environment is truly catastrophic and as the amount of food waste continues

to increase this problem will only get worse.

Unfortunately, the problem of food waste will continue to get worse as affluent

Americans continue to buy and throw out food at such a high rate. However measures can be

taken to minimize the amount of food wasted. While at my internship I wrote a letter to the
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owner of the Dunkin Donuts vendor and received permission to distribute the leftover donuts.

This allowed me to take the leftover food and give it out to the very thankful homeless

community. Creative solutions like this will help to decrease the massive amount of waste in our

country. However, as long as the general American population remains uninformed and

unworried about their consumption habits this rapid destruction of the Earth will continue to

rapidly increase .
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Works Cited

Anderson, Katherine.Personal Interview. 18 December 2017

“America's Food Waste Problem.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 19 June

2017, www.epa.gov/sciencematters/americas-food-waste-problem.

Connett, Paul, et al. “LANDFILLS.” Zero Waste, Jan. 2007,

www.zerowasteamerica.org/landfills.htm.

Leonard, Annie. “The Hidden Consequences of Food Waste.” The Huffington Post,

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 July 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-leonard/the-

hidden-consequences-o_b_10930938.html.

Newton, John. “The Effects of Landfills on the Environment.” Sciencing, Sciencing, 25

Apr. 2017, sciencing.com/effects-landfills-environment-8662463.html.

Paslowiski, Dana. “The Environmental Impact of Food Waste.” Move For Hunger, Move

For Hunger, 19 Aug. 2016, www.moveforhunger.org/the-environmental-impact-of-food-

waste/.

Skye, Jared. “Environmental Problems: Landfills.” LoveToKnow, LoveToKnow Corp,

greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Environmental_Problems:_Landfills.

“Waste.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/waste.

“Waste Land: Does the Large Amount of Food Discarded in the U.S. Take a Toll on the

Environment?” Scientific American, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,

www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talk-waste-land/.
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Works Referenced

Plumer, Brad. “How the U.S. Manages to Waste $165 Billion in Food Each Year.” The

Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Aug. 2012,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/08/22/how-food-actually-gets-wasted-in-

the-united-states/?utm_term=.c48eb17502c9.