The federal government announced a campaign to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030. The U.S. Food Waste Challenge will be aided charities, religious groups, the private sector, and state and local governments. Current estimates say Americans waste 31 percent of their food. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the average family lets $1,500 in food go uneaten every year. “Let’s feed people, not landfills,” said EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who sent the agency’s No. 2 official to the announcement in New York City, where the United Nations is scheduled to discuss sustainable development practices next week.
Food waste amounts to 133 billion pounds a year in the United States “and has far-reaching impacts on food security, resource conservation and climate change,” said the USDA. The largest component in municipal solid waste is discarded food. “Furthermore, experts have projected that reducing food losses by just 15 percent would provide enough food for more than 25 million Americans every year, helping to sharply reduce incidences of food insecurity for millions.”
An environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the United States “will ask countries to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, one of which includes an element to cut ‘per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels’ in half, and ‘reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.'” Individuals and households are responsible for between one-fourth and one-half of food waste, more than any other part of the food chain, said the NRDC.
In conjunction with the new campaign, the USDA unveiled a consumer education program with tips on how to reduce food waste.