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According to a new analysis of the University of California at Davis, the United States has not approached the goal of reducing food waste by 2030.
In September 2015, the United States has set ambitious goals to reduce food loss and waste by 50 %. The idea was to reduce the amount of food that ends in landfills that release greenhouse gases during decomposition, which contributes to climate change.
In the California Davis researchers, in the state’s policies nationwide, in 2022, how much food waste was decreasing in 2022. goal.
Researchers have calculated that even if the reduction measures were taken, the United States produced about 328 pounds per year per person. We have announced our goals for reducing waste.
These numbers show that our best strategies to eliminate waste indicate that it is not enough to achieve our goals, and Sarah Kakadelis, the main researcher of the research. I said Published on Nature this month.
Kakadelis and her team used both publicly available data to evaluate how the United States is doing to achieve the goal of reducing food waste (Refed. A non -profit organization We monitor food waste in the United States) And estimated values based on the current policy status.
According to Lori Leonard, chairman of the Cornell University Global Development Bureau, this survey said, “not surprising,” given that there was no federal government’s policies to manage food waste. “People are trying to do what they can at the state and city level,” she said. “But we really need a public leadership about this problem.”
KAKADELLIS suggests that consumers, such as composting, need to shift how to consider specific waste management strategies.
Composting is turned into a nutritious mixture that can be used to fertilize new plants and crops, such as food scrap. You can’t eat it technically, but it can be regarded as a format of “recycling” food. Kakadelis says that this important detail is that, despite its environmental potential advantages, it must learn composting as a form of food waste.
“I’m really thinking about the best use of food. It’s to eat it,” she said.
It has been advertised as a major alternative means to put your molded bananas in a trash can and chuck, but composting is certainly classified as a form of food waste by the United Nations and European Union. In 2021, the EPA updated the definition of food waste so that it contained compost and anaerobic digestion. In both cases, you can change the inputs of food without food into fertilizers and biogas.
When updating the guidance, EPA has released a food waste level. This shows the best way to reduce food waste. This includes adding accurate labels to food. Therefore, consumers are not confused when the purchased ones are worse or eaten safely. It is also desirable to find different uses of unusual foods and non -solvents foods, such as donating to food banks or integrating them into animal feed. It can be used to breed livestock (assuming that livestock will ultimately feed humans).
Composting plays the role of constantly playing in detour food waste from landfills. These strategies can, for example, can accept rot or rotten foods. “It’s not either. They have to hold hands,” said Kakadelis. “But we skip all of these other steps and go straight to recycling.”
Leonard has agreed and pointed out high costs related to securing the vast and complex food systems of the country. From farms where crops are harvested to cold storage that handles trucks and packaged products. “There is a huge amount of energy to produce the food,” she said. “We don’t do it to create compost. As you know, we do it to feed people.”
Of course, composting is useful for multiple purposes, with food loss and more environmental benefits than lowering waste. For example, replenish the soil. However, if Leonard is performed on the preventive side, the soil will not be depleted in the first place, so that the farm does not produce excessive food, it must be so many improvements in the first place. I have pointed out.
Both Leonard and Kakadelis emphasize that tools to avoid sending food to landfills should not be out of the table. Previously, Leonard, who had worked with the New York State Environmental Protection Bureau, once studied on the ban on other state organic matter.
“Did I ask them if they raised the EPA hierarchy to companies and households and encouraged them to find other better applications in their food scrap? And they said, no, no. What we are really trying to do is to do anything in the hierarchy.
Until there is more options in both the food waste before and after consumption, composting may be the easiest option for many people to access. “That’s the easiest,” Leonard said. “And it’s probably the safest thing until the better protocol is set up.”
This article was originally published Grease in https://grist.org/food- And- agraphritore/the-us-wants-wants-food-food-food-not-even-close/。
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