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It’s a global crisis that isn’t discussed nearly as much as it should be. Grocery stores, farms, restaurants, and the entire nation participate in this problem, yet nothing ever changes. And, despite the fact that the United States wastes over 60 million tons of food every year, food insecurity continues to be an issue in our country, leading to over 14.3 million US people going without food. However, this article isn’t about food insecurity or the fact that millions of tons of quality food products are being wasted yearly (I have covered this topic extensively throughout my career).
Instead, let’s take a closer look at the even more insidious effects of food waste on our climate, groundwater, and safety as an industry and, more importantly, as a community.
Understanding the Food Waste Dilemma
When I first spoke up about food waste in America over a decade ago, I often heard the same excuses and downplay of the situation from those around me. “Sure, we’re wasting 40 million tons of food every in America (it was only 40, not 60 back then), but there’s nothing we can do about it.” Really? If only these same people had listened back then when the numbers were less devastating, the results of PFAS, water scarcity, food insecurity, natural disasters, wildfires, and heat waves may not have become so overwhelming in 2024. But, as they say, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, but the second best time is now. So, let’s take a look at the data today and begin to put the pieces together for an honest and startling look at how impactful food waste truly is on our nation and, ultimately, our world.
In our world, 2.5 billion tons of food is wasted yearly. America is the biggest culprit, with 60 million tons wasted annually. This equates to 120 billion pounds or 40% of our food supply in the nation. To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of every American throwing away 347 pounds of food every single year.
The truth is that this food waste isn’t even based on necessity, as over 80% of Americans discard perfectly good, consumable food simply because they misunderstand expiration labels, while 30 percent of food in American grocery stores is thrown away because of poor storage, rising prices, visual appeal, overbuying, and expiration labels the store doesn’t read correctly likewise. In fact, American retail stores generate about 16 billion pounds of food waste annually on their own.
Another major contributor to food waste in America is the fast food and restaurant industries. Restaurant food waste in the United States generates approximately 22 to 33 billion pounds of food waste every year. In fact, restaurant food waste makes up 15% of all food that ends up in landfills. Meanwhile, fast food restaurants like McDonald’s produce about three tonnes of packaging waste every minute, almost two million tonnes of packaging waste a year. With most of this plastic packaging causing greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution, and PFAS contamination, it’s no wonder why this issue is more than just a food security issue but also a global climate threat.
As the USDA Farm Bill deadline is right around the corner, it’s also essential to understand the farming and agriculture industries’ role in food waste. While the USDA does not take food loss lightly and even partnered with the EPA to call for a 50% reduction in food loss and waste by 2030, the global scale of agricultural food waste remains staggering.
According to a recent report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 1.2 billion tonnes of food is wasted on farms each year, which equates to $370 million in 2.2 gigatonnes of CO2 eq. In fact, agriculture accounts for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions alone globally. The same research showed that “reducing post-harvest waste by 50% in supply chains of high-income countries like the United States could decrease the number of undernourished people in low-income countries by up to 63 million.
The main causes of this food waste at an agricultural level include food being left on the field due to surplus, cancellations or not meeting expectations, poor harvesting techniques, improper transportation and storage, supply chain disruptions, and retail mismanagement.
Similarly, the relationship between farmers and retailers also plays a role in food waste, according to a report by Feedback. In the report, it was shown that “Supermarkets impose strict cosmetic specifications to farmers and only buy produce that fit size, shape, and color specifications regardless of its nutrition, taste, and value. While some farmers reported no waste due to this practice, 7.4% of respondents reported their crops were not sold to the market and had a loss of up to 40% due to these standards.” The survey also revealed that “four out of 10 farmers said that “retailers use cosmetic standards as an excuse to reject produce when they can get a lower price elsewhere or their demand has fallen.””
With a strong understanding of the weight of this crisis, it’s now time we analyze the true impact a crisis like food waste has on our planet, our people, and our water.
Food Waste in Landfills: How it Affects Our Planet, People, and Water
According to Feeding America, 51.7% of waste comes from the food industry. This means that over half of the waste in landfills is from food at every level being discarded despite much of it being completely edible or simply hoarded until it expires. Meanwhile, Nearly 35 million people across America live with food insecurity, and 10 million of them are children.
Not only does this affect our nation from a food security perspective, but it also affects us from a safety and financial perspective. The economic cost of global food waste is estimated to be around $1 trillion annually, and food waste directly impacts our climate and water. Let’s break down each element that food waste impacts below to truly see the long-term effects of this crisis on health and safety for the drilling industry, water conservation, and beyond.
Preserving Our Planet
It’s no secret that climate change has directly impacted blue-collar America. Droughts, wildfires, heat domes, natural disasters, flash floods, poor air quality, groundwater contamination, water scarcity, and unbearable winters all are directly caused by human-induced climate change. Yet, we still don’t take the time to truly address the root causes enough or determine ways to take action at a state and community level.
Food waste is one of the largest causes of climate change and particularly water contamination with approximately 8% of greenhouse gases coming from food waste globally. To put this into perspective, if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases right after the United States and China. The carbon footprint of food waste is estimated to be 3.3 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually, in fact.
Similarly, food waste comprises about 24% of municipal solid waste in landfills. According to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, food waste that ends up in landfills specifically creates methane which is shockingly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The production of all the wasted food in particular generates the equivalent of 32.6 million cars worth of greenhouse gas emissions. On top of this, food waste also accounts for 3.9 million tonnes of fertilizer which also produces methane at a rate of 29,000 metric tons — more than 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate of 200 metric tons, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
Meanwhile, from an energy perspective, the wasted food in America also wastes enough energy to power 274 million homes. This energy inefficiency further impacts climate change as America is also the leading energy waster globally, and energy waste leads to even more greenhouse gas emissions yearly.
To top it all off, wasted food occupies around 1.4 billion hectares of land, which accounts for about 30% of the world’s agricultural land area. This means that roughly 30% of agricultural land area is being affected by food waste, which permeates our ground, water, atmosphere, wildlife, and communities.
“Based on our modeling, food waste has an outsized role in landfill methane emissions,” EPA researcher Dr. Max Krause stated when referring to a study to test methane gas emissions from food waste. As the USDA discussed this study, they emphasized the significance of these stats in stating, “U.S. food loss and waste embodies 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (million MTCO2e) GHG emissions (excluding landfill emissions) – equal to the annual CO2 emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. This estimate does not include the significant methane emissions from food waste rotting in landfills. EPA data show that food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the U.S., comprising 24% and 22% of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste, respectively.”
This doesn’t even touch on plastic and PFAS pollution in food waste. Dr. Youn Jeong Choi, an analytical chemist in the Department of Agronomy at Purdue University, spoke about this very issue in a presentation from 2021, showcasing just how long-standing this issue truly is and how it’s time we start to open our eyes to the very real and very concerning connection food waste has to groundwater and PFAS in our industry.
While the issue of PFAS contamination in our agriculture sector may have started with water and soil contamination, it continues within the food we eat, the food waste we toss in landfills, and the plastic used to package these products. In fact, according to a study entitled ‘Emerging Issues in Food Waste Management Persistent Chemical Contaminants’ from the EPA, “While data on PFAS in food waste is limited, one study reported concentrations of three PFAS in the range of 0.11–1 µg/kg in samples collected from grocery stores, hospitals, schools, restaurants, retirement communicates, and residences. The presence of PFAS in food waste is further supported by multiple studies reporting PFAS in food (i.e., the precursor of food waste) from non-contaminated areas, with concentrations generally <10 µg/kg. Seafood, followed by meat, may be important contributors to PFAS in food items, possibly due to bioaccumulation. Compared to PFAS concentrations in food contact materials, which ranged from <1 to 485 µg/kg, the limited data show that food contact materials may contribute more to overall PFAS levels in food waste streams.”
While we’ll touch further on this in our water conservation section below, it simply goes to show that even one of our most active crises in water quality and climate change nationally is one that is highly prevalent in food waste.
The most unsettling element of food waste’s impact on our climate, however, is likely its cyclical nature. While food waste emits greenhouse gases, wastes water, and energy, and directly impacts our society’s health and well-being, it is climate change that, in turn, leads to more food waste on farms every year.
According to the Greenly Institute, “Climate change also contributes to food losses and lack of food security. It makes growing and harvesting cycles less predictable. Nonseasonal frost, early spring, and a range of other climatic shifts are significantly impacting both the prices farmers set for their crops as well as their ability to predict the right time to plant and harvest.” What does this tell us? It’s a neverending battle and, while we can certainly reduce the impact we as a nation have on food waste, our climate’s degradation will continue to affect agriculture and waste food every year until we can finally begin to reverse the potentially irreversible effects we’ve had on our planet.
Protecting Our People
While climate change does directly impact our communities—and the entire human race, for that matter—it’s important to also look at this crisis from the perspective of health, well-being, and financial impact likewise.
For starters, food waste within the supply chain process leads to substantial financial losses for farmers, producers, and retailers, ranging from 15% to 30% of total production value. Meanwhile, food waste and loss costs around $940 billion per year. These financial and supply chain blows directly impact our economy and affect our nation’s ability to allocate funds to climate change initiatives and other invaluable projects and legislature that impact the drilling, water conservation, and construction industries. On the flip side, if food waste was managed properly, it could boost our economy significantly. In fact, for every $1 invested in food waste reduction initiatives, there is an average return of $14 in cost savings.
Secondarily, with insecurity continuing to be a major issue globally, the fact that 70% of worldwide wasted food is uneaten food that is edible is unbelievable. A recent study, ‘Hunger Reaches Blue-Collar American: An Unbalanced Recovery in a Service Economy,’ was prepared by the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America, a group of 23 doctors and researchers based at the Harvard School of Public Health that organized in 1984 to study hunger. The study found that the boots-on-the-ground workforce was increasingly part of the food insecure statistics in America. Meanwhile, an NIH study found that “The blue-collar workforce is particularly vulnerable to the conditions and impacts of poor nutrition on health and productivity, as these typically low-wage workers face heightened challenges surrounding accessibility, affordability, and convenience of healthy food. Yet they rely on good health to support often physically demanding labor.”
And, while I won’t continue to emphasize how climate change affects work-life balance, mental health, job site safety, heat-related illnesses, and job security, I’d like to think all of those correlations are well-known by the industry and the leaders in charge given the Summer we’ve had thus far and the ongoing wildfires suffocating the Pacific Northwest.
The final thing to consider when it comes to food waste and our society is the role we play in this food waste at every level. While restaurants, farms, and grocery stores waste food every day, the largest food waste source comes from the American household. Furthermore, a few other food waste sources are rarely considered or mentioned:
- Military installations generate 105.3 pounds of food waste per person per year.
- Correctional facilities produce 1.1 tons of food waste per inmate per day.
- Colleges and universities generate 0.44 pounds of food waste per student per meal.
- K-12 schools produce 26.3 pounds of food waste per student per year and 0.43 pounds per meal.
The lesson here? If we don’t begin to look at our food waste from every angle, the problem will only continue to grow and our communities will suffer at every level as a result.
Championing Water Conservation
As groundwater professionals and industry leaders who work closely with the water and agriculture industries, this aspect of the food waste crisis is particularly harrowing. Unsurprisingly, food waste only furthers global water scarcity, with roughly 24% of all water used for agriculture ultimately being wasted due to discarded food. Despite this, 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agricultural purposes. Out of that 70% globally, wasted food accounts for over 25% of global freshwater consumption. To put these numbers into perspective, the water footprint of food waste is approximately 250 km³ per year, equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, the largest river in Europe.
Meanwhile, an even more staggering 80% of all U.S. freshwater consumption is dedicated to the production and distribution of food while, according to WH Foods, 22.1 trillion gallons of water were wasted as a result of surplus food across all sectors and in all states in 2022.
Further adding to the sludge that is contaminating our water and leading to PFAS contamination in the United States, 6.81 million tons of food waste end up in the sewers. Over time, this food waste contaminates our water sources as well as our natural bodies of water, reservoirs, and rivers. According to a study entitled ‘Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Landfills: Occurrence, Transformation and Treatment,’ “Landfills have served as the final repository for > 50 % municipal solid wastes in the United States. Because of their widespread uses and persistence in the environment, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) (>4000 on the global market) are ubiquitously present in everyday consumer, commercial, and industrial products and have been widely detected in both closed (tens ng/L) and active (thousands to ten thousands ng/L) landfills due to disposal of PFAS-containing materials.” When studying where much of these PFAS-containing materials came from, it was found that food waste played a significant role.
The packaging and materials used to preserve these food items led to these staggering PFAS numbers in landfills for decades. Even “compostable” food servicewear is not immune as studies have found that these “compostable” products contain 12 or 13 of the 28 PFAS compounds sampled for, in concentrations ranging from 1.1 to 183 μg/kg (Σ28PFAS range = 209-455 μg/kg).
On top of this, one of the most common solutions to food waste in landfills is now yet another problem we must address as a nation. Composting, once an excellent option for food waste on a national scale, has now been analyzed by multiple scientific bodies, and the results are unfortunate, to say the least. In a study ‘Investigating the sources and fate of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food waste compost,’ the abstract emphasized that “Composting municipal food waste is a key strategy for beneficially reusing methane-producing waste that would otherwise occupy landfill space. However, land-applied compost can cycle per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) back into the food supply and the environment.”
According to ‘Evaluation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in leachate, gas condensate, stormwater and groundwater at landfills’ by Yutao Chen, Hekai Zhang, Yalan Liu, et al., the reason for this is due to the fact that compost leachate, a liquid that seeps from compost piles or worm bins as water drains through the decomposing organic material, is where PFAS levels are the highest from stormwater and groundwater at landfills.
While there are new state laws in several states banning the use of forever chemicals in food packaging and compostable products, scientists continue to seek solutions for the current contaminants oozing out from our landfills and food waste every day. Until an answer is found, the national food waste every year will continue to pollute our water, increase of PFAS contamination, and directly impact our jobs and communities at a significant level.
The Solution? Stay Informed, Educate Others, and Don’t be a Part of the Problem
As we wrap up this extensive breakdown of the food waste dilemma in our nation, I want you to think about the food you waste every day without thinking. How often do you clear out your fridge or pantry and dispose of food items that are either perfectly good or simply expired from not being eaten in time? While it’s easy to disregard these food products or the role you play in food waste in our nation, the first step to a better tomorrow free from food waste and its startling impact on our world is to make a change at the local level.
Stay informed, educate those around you, read the Food Waste Index Report, and raise awareness in your community, with your friends and family, and on the job site. It starts with us, and it should end with us. It may be ‘hard to swallow,’ but as you can now fully see, food waste is a global crisis that affects every aspect of our world. It’s time we take it as seriously as it is when tackling water conservation issues, PFAS contamination, climate change, job site safety, mental and physical health, and the future success of our working class.