Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
Food waste is a serious concern in the United States — every year, between 30 and 40% of all food in the country is unsold or uneaten. The Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), ReFED, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), among other companies and NGOs, are encouraging the federal government to cut US food waste in half by 2030 through five key actions:
Fund infrastructure that measures, recycles, and thwart food waste from being dumped in landfills or incinerated.
Find ways to formalize donating surplus food and fortify local supply chains.
Make the US government a model of food waste management globally.
Promote private and public food waste avoidance campaigns that can educate consumers.
Enforce a national date labeling standard, so consumers can determine more accurately when food has spoiled.
Why This Matters: The statistics paint a sobering picture of how dire the food waste crisis has become. $408 billion worth of food — 2% of the US GDP — is wasted, and less than ten percent of this excess food is donated. According to statistics from Northwestern University, 1 in 4 households have experienced food insecurity last year, or 23% of households. Black and Latino families are twice as likely as white families to face food insecurity, those without high school degrees experienced food insecurity at 27%, and adults with disabilities experience twice the rate of food insecurity as adults without them — making this an environmental justice issue as well.
Should the federal government take into consideration this report’s recommendations, it would be an opportunity to take meaningful action on hunger and food waste alike.
Waste Not, Want Not: Food waste is also a climate issue — food waste comprises 4% of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, food waste that goes directly into landfills contributes to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Pete Pearson, Senior Director of Food Loss and Waste at WWF, told Our Daily Planet: “Immediately removing food and organic waste from our landfills will have a direct impact by reducing GHG emissions. More importantly, the food system carries an incredibly high carbon footprint when we consider farming, transportation, refrigeration and disposal. When we work to measure and prevent food waste, along with creating a more circular system where unavoidable food waste is turned into energy or compost, we create a system that can be in better balance with nature. Nothing is wasted in nature.”
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer If climate change keeps temperatures rising, staple crops in eight East and Southern African countries could decrease by up to 80% by midcentury. According to a new report by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a 2-degree Celsius increase in temperature (which the world is currently on […]
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer With drought continuing in the West, and the summer’s historic floods throughout Europe, the world is wondering how climate change will also affect the way we eat. This controversial question was addressed by agriculture experts, NGOs, government officials, and corporate leaders at Peas, Trees, and 1.5 Degrees, a Climate […]
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer In the lead-up to today’s United Nations Food Systems Summit, young activists spoke about their priorities for the global gathering at yesterday’s Food is the Future event. At the event, youth representatives from worldwide interviewed adult peers in the world of food system work. In an effort to […]
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.