PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 22, 2021
As much as 40% of the food produced for human consumption is being discarded along the supply chain — from being left to rot in the field to being tossed into your home garbage uneaten. When a piece of food is wasted, so is all the energy used to grow, process, ship and store it. And once food waste is in the ground, it gives off methane, one of the leading drivers of climate change. As a result, food waste is just behind road transport when it comes to the emissions. If it was its own country, food waste would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the U.S. There’s no way to address the climate crisis without first looking at how much food we throw away. This Earth Day, everyone should take it upon themselves to think about how much food is wasted. It should drive us all to change the wasteful way we do things.