Understanding Our Role in Reducing Food Waste

Imagine you are in a grocery store, and you stumble across two potatoes: one oddly shaped, with scuffs covering its surface, and close to the expiration date, and a flawless, medium-sized, ripened, potato. If you are like most of the world's population, you would pick the second one, but have you wondered where those less unattractive foods go?

It is estimated that around 20% of the world's produce gets thrown out just because of its looks. And, did you know that food is often wasted because people don’t know the difference between “sell-by,” “use-by,” “best-by” labels and expiration dates? Both of these facts are detrimental to our planet's food waste problem as 40 percent of food grown, processed, and transported in the United States is never eaten.

There are so many things you can do to help the expansive food waste problem but start with two simple tasks: First, learn the difference between “sell-by,” “use-by,” and “best-by” labels and expiration dates. This will prevent us from discarding perfectly good food and stop us from filling up landfills. When food goes into the landfill, it leads to methane and other harmful gases, so learn those labels!

Second, simply buying unappealing foods will stop us from wasting excess food that just gets thrown away and instead could be eaten, even though you might not like the way it looks. As part of the [Marin School of Environmental Leadership’s] Food Waste Reduction group, we are encouraging others to act on this problem by spreading awareness through events, getting people involved, and simply composting. Reducing your overall food waste can change our economy, increase food security in families all across the world, help reduce climate change, and fix the all-around food waste problem. So, next time you are in the grocery pick the ugly potato, because we should feed people, not landfills! 

By Maxine Bussi, 9th Grade, Marin School of Environmental Leadership

Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, CA

If you want to learn more go to https://www.paintedbins.org/our-impact. Thank you!