Food Waste is the New Plastic Pollution
Today, I went for a nice, yet hot, run and I decided I needed to spend some time on the foam roller afterwards. Netflix just released the newest season of “Orange is the New Black” so I turned it on and went to work on the foam roller. Mid-roll, in a particularly painful place on the IT band, I heard this, “Expiration dates are bullshit.”
Hold up. Did I just hear that? I went back a few seconds and yes, indeed, Natalie Figueroa said, “Expiration dates are bullshit” in response to one of the guard’s complaint that the FBI has been using their break room for too long and his yogurt is in the fridge (and thus, nearing its expiration).
I couldn’t agree more. Expiration dates are bullshit. Best Before, Best By, Best If Used By and Enjoy By dates merely indicate food quality, not food safety. Sell By is meant to be used by store staff, not the consumer. This means that people are throwing away literally tons of perfectly good food because they think it went bad. That is bullshit.
That is bullshit because food is precious. Throwing away food represents a loss of many precious resources from water to energy to seeds and more. Someone(s) grew, picked, transported, potentially processed, maybe packaged and sold that food that simply went to waste. People then buy this food only to waste it and their money. Then when this food is sent to the landfill, when it eventually breaks down, it breaks down anaerobically which generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Thus, food waste contributes negatively to climate change.
Further, food waste is not a small problem. Globally, 40% of the food produced in the world is wasted.
It’s a huge problem, but there are many solutions (see below for more reading) that we can all take to reduce our individual and organizational food waste.
There is a renewed interest in combatting plastic pollution with many companies ditching plastic straws and so on. Let’s make food waste the new plastic pollution and take steps today and every day to reduce food waste. The Planet and our wallets will thank us.
To learn more about food waste, check out:
Does food waste really matter?, Ten Suprising Causes of Food Waste and How to Fix Them, The Food Wastage Pyramid, WASTED: America, Let’s Stop Wasting 40% of our Food, and Question: What can I do to reduce food waste? Answer: A lot!
