The problem with food waste  

Each year, 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States alone. That is the equivalent of  130 billion meals and more than 408 billion dollars wasted. Despite the large amount of food going to waste, roughly 44 million people face hunger in the United States. Much of this food could have been consumed, and we, contributors to this problem, should make big changes to help reduce those numbers. Through reducing our own food waste and redistributing food that would otherwise be wasted to people in need, we can work to fix our food waste problem.

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Food waste has significant environmental impacts. According to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, U.S. food loss and waste contributes 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, equivalent to the annual emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. When food is wasted, so are all the resources that went into growing that food.