Alex Milliron, author of the blog titled We The People, makes a very convincing and extremely important argument on the current status of food waste in America in her post "American Food Waste: An Epidemic." Food waste could be remedied not by an increase in food production, but by an ameliorated system of food distribution world wide. The issue also endangers the environment, with methane produced by decaying food leaking into the atmosphere.
Hunger is a global issue made more serious by food waste in developed countries. However, the actions of the fortunate affect those much closer to home as well, with an estimated 1 in 7 Americans struggling with food insecurity. This problem cannot be disregarded as a distant difficulty when it is occurring in our own neighborhoods. But with a large portion of Americans living in ignorance of the global hunger crisis, education and awareness must improve before any changes can occur.
If human lives are not enough to convince a person that food waste may be a problem, the environmental dangers posed by food waste add to the tolls of destruction, as explained by Milliron. Methane production is high with food waste, and is "20 times more lethal a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide." What is shocking to me is the fact that per capita, the U.S. has greater greenhouse emissions than China (while China is branded a pollution capital). I lived in Shanghai the past three years, and the effects of pollution and food waste (a problem faced by China as well) are extremely apparent in the water they drink, the air they breathe. The absence of thick clouds of brown smog hanging over American cities does not negate the fact that our emissions, from food waste or otherwise, are of dangerous magnitude and must be addressed as seriously as anywhere else.
Milliron concludes her blog with a call for the government to focus on legislations that would improve the efficiency of food distribution and lower our greenhouse gas emissions. This, along with the education of the public on these affairs, appears to be the most certain way of ensuring a healthier, cleaner, and more fruitful future.
