Let’s Learn About Food Waste and Composting

What is Food Waste

Some might know and some might not know, but food waste is a very big issue right now and we are here to address it. In this blog post, we will talk about the following: What is food waste, food waste currently, and ways that we can all prevent food waste.

Why is this important? When food waste increases, it can have a negative environmental impact on our planet, and our goal is to decrease food waste as much as possible.

Have you ever felt really full and couldn’t finish your food? Well, that uneaten food is called food waste. 

Food waste happens when food that is uneaten gets thrown away and wasted. Not only is food waste a waste to those that don’t have food, it also wastes all the water and energy it takes to harvest it!

Additionally, it wastes the transportation and energy labor (packing) it takes to move food from one place to another.  

We can solve this problem by finishing our food, composting any food scraps when we are done, and also finding creative ways to solve food waste such as not buying what we don’t need. Eating leftovers is a great way to prevent food waste! 

Food Waste at the Moment

Now that you know what food waste is, let’s talk about food waste as of right now. The average food waste for schools is 18,000 pounds per school year.  That means we average 48 pounds of wasted food every single school day. 

And it’s not just that food, it’s everything needed to make it that is wasted. So out of our full day of eating, usually one third of it goes to waste. That is obviously a lot of food waste! Like we stated earlier, we’re trying to decrease food waste as much as possible, so as a community, we must all work together and help our environment.

How Can We Prevent Food Waste?

There are many ways to prevent food waste. One way you can prevent food waste is to compost. Compost is a trash can for only food leftovers. 

The way compost works is, you put food into the compost, and the bacteria and little insects eat the waste and turn it into soil! 

Then the soil is used to help with gardens, which can produce more food! It’s a great, healthy, life-producing cycle!

Another way to help with food waste is leftovers. For example, after dinner, instead of throwing the uneaten food away, put it into a container and put it in the fridge to eat later, or get creative and make a different meal out of the food the next day! The next day, maybe you could put it in your lunch, or eat some of it as a snack. ALWAYS remember to put it in the fridge, or else the food could go bad. Another advantage to always using leftovers is it saves a lot of money for a family!

Doing these actions won’t always feel like you’re doing a lot, but just know that every time you compost or pack leftovers, it makes a bigger impact than you think! Imagine if every single person took these actions?

Why is Composting So Important?

Composting turns food waste into soil! It’s a win-win! When food waste goes into the regular trash or landfill bins, it is taken to the “dump” where it starts to decompose (rot) and it creates a gas called methane gas that is very bad for the environment and contributes to climate change.

The very simple act of composting all food scraps prevents the bad gas from entering the environment!

In closing, you can see that we waste entirely too much valuable food, but we all have the power to change that by making decisions that prevent food waste!  Thank you so much for your time and we hope you are as committed as we are to preventing food waste AND composting. It’s for our future!

By Lola Martinez, Clara Orr, and Mimi Rigopoulos, 
5th grade members of the Neil Cummins Green Team
Neil Cummins Elementary School, Corte Madera, CA

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