Food Waste

Up to 40% of food has never been eaten in the United States. But at the same time, one out of eight Americans is trying to put enough food on the table.

The NRDC is committed to making the US food system more efficient and wasteful. We help the city shift the remaining food to people in need. We encourage consumers to reduce useless food at home and develop strategies to achieve this. We are encouraging the food industry and the federal government to stop the date label confusion and adopt other waste reduction policies. We will work with communities, companies and policy makers to help prevent food waste, save remaining food, and compost food residue throughout the supply chain.

In the United States, from the Thanksgiving Day to the New Year, 5 million tons of household food waste is generated each year. This is three times the rest of the year. This is a waste of food. The holiday season will also result in more energy waste, more garbage, more environmental pressure. Next, let's not waste all the delicious food you make, especially meat. During Thanksgiving, Americans abandoned about 277 million dollars of unfed food. It contains about 200 million pounds of turkey, and up to 6 million turkeys (and all resources they procure) are added to our waste stream.

Generally, Americans will waste 40% of the food produced in the United States. The natural resources that produce this food are also wasted. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, if food waste is a country it will be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The food we waste has a great influence on wildlife and the environment. Most of the abandoned food in the landfill eventually threatens wild animals with toxic waste. When they mistakenly enter the net and become 'bycatch', our wasted fishery behavior will harm the endangered animals. These marine animals such as turtles, dolphins, whales, sharks, etc. are abandoned by millions of people.