Food waste – Is it Really Worth it?

By Sophia Gerl

Did you ever really think about the consequences when you throw away your food? I think the majority of the people don’t really think about it because it’s “not a big deal”. The effect it has on the environment is huge though.

I’m from Germany. And when I came to America for the first time, I was really shocked to see how Americans deal with their food and plastic. Nobody really separates the different kinds of materials in the trash. And the food gets wasted over and over. Compared to my home country it’s very different. Most of the food comes without any packaging. We also don’t use plastic straws or forks anymore, they are literally banned there.

But the most important thing for me is that food isn’t wasted by most people.

So you can probably comprehend that I feel committed to express or change the way we should look after our environment. I think that it’s a huge problem that nobody really talks about it even though it should be.

My mom taught me to avoid food waste, so it’s very normal for me to save food that is about to go into the trash. But for others it’s definitely not. I can’t judge them because they were taught another way.

But what are really the consequences?

All food that we consume is produced in some kind of way. Whether it has grown on a field for a long time or it’s been produced in a factory. In both ways many different resources were needed. Statistics show that we waste around 25% of the agricultural surface that has been used for the production and around 91 oz of water per person a year.

Also the transport has a big impact on environmental pollution. It brings up a lot of CO2 which heats up the earth overtime. These are just the main problems that arise because of food waste. Our planet needs to be saved. And you can support it. Keep our planet green and clean!