Food Waste Absurdity

Michael Zueger
3/29/11
Before tossing away that fruit or vegetable with one minute imperfection or piling up the buffet plate knowing that you’ll only eat a fraction of it, please reconsider for the good of everyone and the earth. This is an issue that is relatively well-known, but is in the top shelf of concerns that cannot get enough recognition. Farmers, restaurants, grocery stores, and households throw away millions of tons of food per year Food waste production in this world, especially the U.S., is mind-boggling. As if our unsustainable and exploitative mass-agricultural productions aren’t harmful enough, we somehow manage to throw away between 25% and 40% of all the food that is produced! With food waste being the third largest contributor to the waste stream (after paper and yard waste), one estimate portrays that $31 billion worth of food is discarded annually and only 3% may be recovered.
Waste is built into the system in modern days so more efficient production and distribution should be utilized. Key benefits of diversion/recovery efforts are reduced disposal and hauling costs, decreasing the amount of material sent to landfills, supporting local economy by creating and sustaining new jobs (e.g. composting facilities), improving soil properties with composting, and helping to feed the surplus of hungry people. An ideal solution is food waste prevention such as better preparation of food, portion sizes, and more closely inspecting inventories and trends in consumption.
An obvious, but quite significant argument is that we waste so much while many individuals are malnourished or starving everyday, even in America. It’s a shame the middle and higher class lifestyles must be so indulgent, exploitative, and picky on a planet that has treated us far too well for how poorly we treat and tend to care for it. Grocery stores and restaurants tend to throw away massive amounts of food rather than donate for concern of unsafe food liability (the 1996 Good Samaritan Food Donation Act addresses this). A large portion of food could be separated for a donation to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food banks, etc. A separate section of a market for items past the sell by date or about expired at a lower cost would be great.
Another large approach is to compost or vermicompost (using worms to accelerate the process). This method can either be on-site, off-site or done in your own backyard(with that yard waste too!). On-site would be used for a smaller company or farm that would like to use it or distribute it for soil nutrients locally. I have a feeling many companies and large farms would request off-site composting facilities. This is where large productions, similar to the recycling program, can occur to create jobs, useable material, and possible methane capture (methane production/capture of composting and landfills is a whole different arena). Compost is primarily used for excellent land fertilizers and soil conditioners.
Food scraps can be made of great use for animal feed. Although certain guidelines and restrictions exist, it would be worth a little effort in education and creating procedures for stores and restaurants to do this. Food processing by-products (e.g. excess whey from cheese making) can be high in nutrients and other raw materials that would work as raw materials for edible foods and animal feed.
I personally encourage commercial (not residential!) dumpster diving and scavenging for discarded items although compactors are common enemies. It may be illegal in some areas, but there’s no reason for this waste. Expiration dates hardly mean a thing (careful of dairy and raw meats, choose wisely and carefully) and “sell by” dates are where a good amount of store waste comes from. But alas the almighty, germ fanatic human cannot have flawed or older food in any way or it will be discarded of immediately and replaced with twenty more items. If you’re fine with putting chemicals all over your body and in, while residing in a sealed, air-polluted chamber pumping yourself full of sugar and pre-packaged foods, you can handle a food item that is not at its highest quality or freshness.
Since this is an output approach technique (similar to recycling), management plans, collection methods and facilities must be developed to aid the implementation. It’s quite frustrating when people can’t do a simple task such as recycling or reusing the container the food arrives in, so I foresee a large struggle in trying to carry out food management practices. Appropriate analysis and more potential solutions for this topic would necessitate a thesis-length paper, but this nano overview may raise awareness and a desire to support the situation.
References:
http://www.wastecapwi.org/documents/foodwaste.pdf
http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/food-waste-remains-persistent-problem-farms-grocery-stores-and-restaurants