Is Excessive Food Waste an Environmental Concern Essay

Is Excessive viands Waste an Environmental Concern - Essay ExampleThis research will begin with the statement that harmonise to a report by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (APA), remarkably few citizens know that inordinate intellectual nourishment waste is an surroundingsal hazard. Excessive food refers to wasteful practices by consumers and during production. Most people beseech that since food is biodegradable, it does not pose a threat to the environment. However, a report published by EPA revealed that when food rots, it produces a greenhouse gas known as methane. Amazingly, methane is twenty times much damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) argues that if only five per centum of Americans food fling were recovered, it would be enough to feed four million people for a day. USDA reported that loaded to 26 million tons of wasted food get thrown away in drool annually. In fact, in 2010, food ap proximated to 34 million tons went to waste. In addition, food waste make the single largest component of municipal solid waste reaching incinerators and landfills. EPA notes that the U.S government spends close to one billion dollars just to dispose of all its wasted food. This is exceedingly astonishing. The excess money spent on the solicitude of wasted food can be used to run vital government departments. Experts from the University of Arizona count that the countrys environmental impact can be reduced by 25 percent if Americans can reduce their food wastage by a half. This appears to be true because the Food and Agricultural governing (FAO) indicated on 10th January 2012 that one-third of the food produced for human consumption globally, goes to waste every year. FAO reported that consumers and retailers in the U.S waste close to 40 percent of edible food annually. The data from FAO is also astonishing and calls for prompt actions. From the data reported earlier, it is cl ear that excessive food waste is becoming a serious environmental hazard. Considering the report produced by FAO, the U.S is just a representative of many nations whose citizens waste tons of food annually. The intimately alarming bit is that methane, the gas produced from food rot, traps heat in the atmosphere 23 times more than the widely known carbon dioxide. Since global warming affects the whole earth, stakeholders should consider passing international regulations that find the quantity of wasted food a country produces, in order to curb methane overproduction.