Food Waste

One man's meat is another man's poison, or so the old saying goes, but it's doubtful whether anyone could make use of 1,250 gallons of ruined mayonnaise. According to Atlas Obscura, though, that was exactly the situation at Michigan State University this past December, thanks to freezing temperatures that compromised a ridiculous amount of the condiment.

With millions of people all over the world struggling to find enough food to eat, the fact that millions of tons of food is tossed out every year can be surprising. But it is true.

You know how, in sci-fi books and movies, we always seem to have figured out this whole "world hunger" problem? We always have some miraculous technology, or some political movement, that has solved the dilemma of making sure everyone has enough food, and that the planet isn't decimated by the environmental costs of raising colossal herds of animals.Well, it's possible we're on the verge of turning science fiction into science fact yet again.

In "The Great Balancing Act: Creating a Sustainable Food Future," the World Resources Institute asks, "How can the world adequately feed more than 9 billion people by 2050 in a manner that advances economic development and reduces pressure on the environment?" What does food waste have to do with this challenge? A lot, it turns out. Consider these statistics: We waste about one-third of all food produced worldwide, about 1.

The anaerobic digester, also called the biogas digester, is an option for transforming food waste into two valuable products--biogas and soil amendments like fertilizer.Several communities, in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, have stopped food waste from going into landfills and instead, have diverted it into large-scale anaerobic digesters.

Food waste stretches across the supply chain from farm to fork. The natural and human resources needed to grow, package, transport, and prepare food that ends up in landfills are more resources lost than any of us can afford, especially in the face of food insecurity and hunger across America.

There are millions of animals being raised for food. Cows, pigs, chickens, and others are each an industry unto themselves, and their consumption is big business.

When we think about the greenhouse gases being put into our environment, and where they come from, we tend to think of cars, fossil fuel power plants, and similar energy sources. What we don't tend to think about, though, is our food.