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Waste reduction fast facts: Food and agriculture

Garbage and recycling  ›  Resources for schools  ›  Fast facts about waste reduction  ›  Food and agriculture

This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.

Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.

• In 2003, food wastes accounted for nearly 12 percent of the total materials discarded in the United States. –EPA, “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2003 Facts and Figures” 2003
  www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/msw99.htm#links
• Twenty-seven percent of the food produced for human consumption in the U.S. is thrown out as waste, equaling 48 million tons annually. –Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, “Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses,” 1997
• Fifty-three percent of disposed food is fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and milk. –Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, “Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses,” 1997
• When counting only the uneaten portions of meals and waste from food preparation (such as produce trimmings), Americans throw away an average of 163 pounds of food per person per year. –Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, “Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses,” 1997
• Recovering only 5 percent of U.S. food waste would represent one day’s worth of food for four million people. –Economic Research Service, USDA, “Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses,” 1997
• Putting this good, usable food into landfills costs Americans $50 million each year. –Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, “Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses,” 1997
• Over 190,000 tons of food waste was landfilled in 2002, constituting 16 percent of the total waste stream. –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Oregon Waste Characterization and Composition Final Report, 2002
• In the Portland metro region, more than 180,000 tons of food was landfilled in 2000. Close to half of that was probably edible. –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Waste Characterization Study, 2000
• At a dollar value to food banks of $1.67 per pound, we threw away an estimated $327 million worth of edible food just in the Metro region alone, costing more than $12 million to truck it to the landfill to bury it. –Metro, Internal report, 2000; America’s Second Harvest, 2000
• Each year, the nation's supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores toss out approximately 27 million tons of edible food worth $30 billion. –University of Arizona College of Social and Behavior Sciences, “Retailers Offer Food That Is Convenient, But Sometimes Unprofitable,” 2002; “University research “trashes” fast food,” Waste News, 5/12/03
  http://sbs.arizona.edu/news/current_news.php?newsid=1242
• Approximately 12 percent of the food served as part of the National School Lunch Program is wasted, resulting in an estimated direct economic loss of $600 million. –US Department of Agriculture, “Several Strategies May Lower Plate Waste In School Feeding Programs,” Joann F. Guthrie and Jean C. Buzby, Food Review, Volume 5, Issue 2, March 2002
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that animals in the U.S. meat industry produce 61 million tons of waste each year, which is 130 times the volume of human waste – or five tons for every U.S. citizen. –Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future, “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture,” July 1999
• Dairy cows produce 82 pounds of manure a day, beef cow 60 pounds , a sow and litter 33 pounds and a boar 11. –Waste News, Scott Merryweather, April 29, 2002
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. –The Sierra Club, 1998
  www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/factsheets/water.asp
• The United States devotes about 17 percent of its fossil fuel consumption to the production and consumption of food: six percent for crop and livestock production, six percent for processing and packaging, and five percent for distribution and cooking. –Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 Special Focus: The Consumer Society, January 2004, ISBN: 0-393-32539-3
• Food now travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to table, as much as 25 percent farther than two decades ago. –The Guardian, Jeremy Rifkin, “The world’s problems on a plate,” May 17, 2002
• The tonnage of food shipped between countries has grown fourfold over the last four decades. –World Watch Institute news release, “Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving,” Nov. 2002
  www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2002/11/21/
• A head of lettuce grown in California’s Salinas Valley and shipped nearly 3,000 miles to Washington, D.C., requires about 36 times as much fossil fuel energy in transport as it provides in food energy when it arrives. –World Watch Institute news release, “Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving,” Nov. 2002
  www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2002/11/21/
• Surveys have shown that a typical meal using local ingredients entails 4 to 17 times less petroleum consumption in transport than the same meal bought from the conventional food chain. –World Watch Institute news release, “Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving,” Nov. 2002
  www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2002/11/21/
• It takes 6.9 pounds of grain, 44 gallons of gasoline and 430 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of pork. It takes 4.8 pounds of grain, 25 gallons of gasoline and 390 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef. –World Watch Institute, Alan Durning, “Fat of the Land,” 1991
• Two quarts of gasoline and 1000 quarts of water are required to produce a quart of Florida orange juice. –Natural Capitalism; Paul Hawken, Amory and L. Hunter; Lovin Little Brown & Co.; September 1999
  www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid20.php
• Every year in the U.S., 25 million pounds of antibiotics, (about 70 percent of the total U.S. antibiotic production) are fed to chickens, pigs, and cows for nontherapeutic purposes like growth promotion, amounting to 10 million pounds used in hogs, 11 million in poultry and 4 million in cattle. –Union of Concerned Scientists, Jan. 9, 2001
  www.ucsusa.org
• The Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy estimates that U.S. fish farmers who apply conventional methods use between 200,000 and 433,000 pounds of antibiotics annually. –Conscious Choice Magazine, “Rushing Waters – A Wisconsin Fish Farm the Environment Loves!,” January 2003
  www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/021803_fish_farm.cfm
• World cereal consumption has more than doubled in the last 30 years while meat consumption has tripled since 1961. –World Resources Institute 2000-2001, Gregory Mock, “How Much Do We Consume?,” June 2000
• An acre of cereal produces five times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production. An acre of legumes (beans, peas, lentils) can produce 10 times more protein and an acre of leafy vegetables, 15 times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production. –The Guardian, Jeremy Fifkin, “The world’s problems on a plate,” May 17, 2002
• Each year in the U.S., 157 million metric tons of cereal, legumes and vegetable protein suitable for human use is fed to livestock, which produces 28 million metric tons of animal protein for human consumption. –The Guardian, Jeremy Fifkin, “The world’s problems on a plate,” May 17, 2002