Monday
Apr302012
Feeding the Landfill
Monday, April 30, 2012 at 1:00AM
By Sandy Hu
Recently, The Wall Street Journal published a story called “Leftovers: Tasty or Trash?” in which the writer shared some eye-opening statistics:
- An average U.S. family of four throws away between $500 to $2,000 worth of food each year
- 25 percent of trash in a home (all avoidable waste) consists of vegetables
- 16 percent is fruits and juices
- 14 percent is grains
- 13 percent is milk and yogurt
Here’s another disturbing fact cited by the paper: After paper and paperboard, food is the next largest solid waste component in U.S. landfills and incinerators. A staggering 33 million tons of food was dumped in 2010 according to the Environmental Protection Agency.