Food Waste

Chairs

Leslie Provence, Chair
Sumita Jonak, Co-chair

Food waste is a serious problem impacting our communities and our environment. A few ingredients going bad here or there doesn’t seem significant, but within the United States, 30-40% of the food supply ends up wasted. This not only wastes money and promotes food insecurity, but the impacts on the environment are disastrous: seafood waste returns to the ocean and wreaks havoc on marine life, animal ecosystems become unbalanced, and food that rots in landfills generate greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. As evidenced by the EPA graphic, there are several beneficial uses for food waste before letting it end up in a landfill (brown bin). The most effective way to start tackling the problem of food waste is to address it at the source—buy or prepare only what’s needed.