Waste Warriors: Folks Across the Nation Divert Food from Landfills

Americans are some serious wasters. According to the Worldwatch Institute, citizens send about 31 million tons of uneaten food into landfills annually, about 475 pounds of waste per person. Just to put these astronomical figures into perspective, that's the weight of about 74 Golden Gate bridges. Every. Single. Year.

If the fact that one billion people are malnourished isn't enough to make folks feel bad about this situation, all that food waste takes a heavy toll on the environment, too. According to Scientific American, a 2009 study showed that 25 percent of America's water supply and four percent of its oil consumption go towards producing food that doesn't ever get eaten. Plus, once food is sent to the landfill, it rots, emitting tons of methane, a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. About 34 percent of America's methane emissions come from landfills every year. I bet you never knew those scraps of unfinished cheeseburgers and moldy spuds caused such a massive, global problem.

Statistics show that America's wastefulness is only getting worse: According to a story on Treehugger, between 1996 and 2006, Americans' consumption of goods and services increased by 28 percent. And while I don't doubt the accuracy of those statistics, I've actually been very encouraged by the work I've been seeing to combat the country's food waste epidemic.

Take Robert Colmer, owner of RC Farms in Las Vegas. The city's casinos and hotels send the scraps to Colmer, who cooks them to remove pathogens and then feed them to his 3,000 hogs. The endeavor diverts food from the landfill and provides local farmers and the city with manure, which they use for fertilizer.

While Colmer's just one dude with a lot of pigs, entire cities are starting to take an interest in preventing food waste, too. Berkeley, C.A. recently began its food waste collection pilot program. The city accepts scraps from restaurants, greenmarkets, bakeries, and food manufacturers and turns them into compost, which is given away to the public. And another innovative group, the Society of St. Andrews, visit farms post-harvest to pick up all the produce left behind by farm equipment. In 2009, the group collected 15.7 million pounds of fresh fruits and veggies to give away to the needy. Not too shabby considering this produce would've otherwise been left to rot in crop fields.

These may be just a few examples of some of the most innovative projects out there, but all this food salvaging is nothing short of inspiring. With so many complex issues in the world, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Preventing food waste is as easy as keeping good food out of your trash bucket and on the plates of folks who need it. For ways that you can help cut back on food waste in your own home, check out Change.org blogger David Orr's post on this topic.

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks via Flickr