When you throw away your leftovers after dinner or let the meal you left in the fridge go bad, where do you think it all goes? Billions of pounds of food go to waste every year because of people throwing out new or old food. Is there any way we can change those statistics?
Food waste is such a major problem, not only at Kaneland High School, but in the world as a whole. People take their leftovers and toss them without a second thought about what it may do for the environment or the communities around them.
“1 billion tonnes of food go wasted between farm and fork,” Liz Goodwin, the writer of The Global Benefits of Reducing Food Loss and Waste, and How to do it, explained. “This equates to 24% of the world’s food supply going uneaten. At the same time, 1 in 10 people globally remain malnourished.”
Most people tend not to pay attention to how much food truly goes to waste unless they are struggling financially themselves. Plenty of students decide each day that they don’t want to eat certain things that they were given for whatever reason it may be.
“Students either don’t like the food they have, or their parents pack the food for them and they just throw it away,” Foods and Nutrition teacher Kirstin Murphy said. “Or they like the food, but they just want to buy something in the cafeteria, and then they end up throwing away their food.”
When food gets put into landfills, there are methane emissions that get released from the food that rot. By reducing food waste, we can reduce the amount of gas emissions that are associated with global warming.
“Food waste is an urgent global crisis,” according to Feeding America. “People and companies throw away billions of pounds of edible food every year. This not only strains our environment but also deepens food insecurity.”
Restaurants also tend to throw away a lot of food that could easily have been used. While some restaurants are doing better at avoiding waste, there is still room for improvement.
“Restaurants or households can plan what they are making beforehand,” Murphy said. “They would only end up buying the ingredients that they need. Then they can use ingredients in a way so that they’re not throwing them out before they expire.”
If billions of dollars get wasted every year because of food waste, why can’t we just turn it around and fix it all? Some people believe that it would be expensive and too much of a financial burden to try and make a difference. However, if everyone put in their own time and effort, then the amount of money that could be put into getting rid of food waste could decrease.
Composting old, unused food doesn’t cost anything. In fact, composting is one of the best ways to dispose of old food instead of letting it sit in landfills. Composting also works as a way to restore nutrients into our own soil to fertilize our own crops. It is one of the best alternatives if you have the space in your own yard.
According to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), “Composting is using organic material to create nutrient-rich soil or compost. Composting can be done at home.”
Families in America tend to discard unused food much more than anywhere else in the world. Even so, there are plenty of ways we could be more careful about what we waste in our homes and how we consume.
“An average of 46.5 million tons of waste is landfilled in Illinois each year,” according to the IEPA, “Food waste accounts for as much as 20 percent of that 19 million tons, which is more than any other single waste stream found in landfills.”
You could compost old, unused vegetables, fruits, coffee grounds and egg shells and use them as fertilizers for a garden. These materials are rich in nitrogen and break down easily.
Schools could also repurpose the food that they have not used. Sometimes there are some lunch items that they haven’t used; instead of throwing them away, the people in the cafeteria could find a way to preserve them.
“We could repurpose food from earlier in the week,” Murphy said. “This food could be put in a freezer, kept frozen, then reheated when it’s ready to be used again.”
Some schools even separate their food from plastics in the cafeteria; this could be something that any school can implement.
“There are some schools that have science or environmental-type clubs that will do the composting,” Murphy said. “Whether it’s from a foods class or down in the cafeteria, they’ll have separated garbage cans just for food so they can compost it.”
Instead of throwing out the last piece of food on your plate or looking for the perfect fruit or vegetable for purchase, finish the rest of your dinner, compost it or save it as a leftover. Take the less-than-perfect vegetable from the grocery store, do what we can to reduce food waste and help the environment and communities around us, even from the comfort of our own homes.
