A report issued by a British organization estimates that about sixty million metric tons of food is wasted each year in the U.S. Thirty-two million metric tons of that may be ending up in landfills, causing local governments additional money. The estimated value of what is tossed is about $162 billion.
But the problem of food waste is not solely limited to America: the report estimates that fully one third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed.
Ron Nixon reports for the New York Times:
“Food waste is a global issue, and tackling it is a priority,” said Richard Swannell, director of sustainable food systems at the Waste and Resources Action Program, or Wrap, an antiwaste organization in Britain that compiled the new report. “The difficulty is often in knowing where to start and how to make the biggest economic and environmental savings.”
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the food discarded in most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s 870 million hungry people.