Food Waste causes Climate Change. Here's how we stop it.

this video is sponsored by Skillshare curries burgers sushi pizzas tortillas as a species food is central not only to our survival but also to our cultures we love food but as much as we love food we also love to throw it away the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that globally almost one third of food produced for consumption never gets eaten and in the u.s. that number is even higher forty percent of the u.s. is available food supply gets wasted every year as a report from the NRDC notes that's like buying five bags of groceries at the store and then just leaving two of them in the parking lot every time you shop so today we're going to look at food waste with three questions why is excessive food waste happening what are its environmental consequences and how can we fix it if all the food currently getting thrown in the landfill every year was instead diverted into meals for those in need we'd be able to feed as many as 1.8 billion people on top of that food waste has been estimated to be responsible for roughly 8 percent of global emissions if it was a country it would rank third under China in the United States for yearly greenhouse gas emissions it's large emissions footprint not only comes from all the energy needed to ship process and produce the food that ends up in the trash but also from the potent methane fumes that food emits as it decomposes in landfills so food waste is one of the many issues at the crossroads of climate action and social justice but food doesn't just sprout out of the ground and then magically end up in the trash there's a long chain of business and consumer interactions that at any point might turn perfectly edible food into waste simply put food transforms into trash in two general areas as it travels from farm to wait before the point-of-sale and after the point-of-sale if we look at this chart the majority of the food waste generated in the United States comes after the point-of-sale but let's look at the food loss before that on farms and in grocery stores in order to understand how this all starts before I transitioned to making YouTube videos full time I worked in a number of food-related positions where I saw firsthand how the drive for perfect abundant produce perpetuated an unnecessary trend of food waste as a farmhand at a number of different farms when I saw insect bites on arugula leaves or blemishes on peppers and tomatoes I knew they were destined to rot all that time effort and fuel wasted because the farm manager knew that better-looking produce will always sell over and perfect ones these cosmetically challenged products as they've come to be known can often end up left on the ground by harvesters or even make their way to landfills and into piles of food that decomposes and generate harmful emissions but the aesthetics of produce are just one part of the picture market prices for food can also affect weather crops make it through the harvest according to one recent study that analyzed on-farm food loss in California thirty three point seven percent of produce remains unharvested every year that's the equivalent of growing 300 acres of cantaloupe and leaving 100 acres of it to decay in the fields which according to an article from civil eats is exactly what happened to 6th generation farmer Canon Michel Michel couldn't justify paying workers to pick the cantaloupe because the cost of labour packing and shipping would have been more than the price he could get for the fruit and even if the food does make it off farms it still has to navigate the gauntlet of grocery store aisles one of the best ways to sell food is through the illusion of abundance people shop visually and to most that last Apple on the Shelf was left there because there was something wrong with it not because it just happened to be the last one in order to appear abundant grocery stores often over buy food to trick people into purchasing items as a result produce inevitably goes to waste as it sits out all day like glorified window dressing farmer Delaney's iock explains this dilemma and the documentary just eat it and there is an hour left in the market that one bunch of chard would sit there and no one would buy but if I had 30 bunches of chard all like bursting out I probably sell like 25 so what is that saving people are totally impulse shopping so at the grocery store and farmers markets vendors face an uphill battle against the old saying pile it high and watch it fly they need to produce an excess of food to sell their goods but that excess can at times lead to more waste after the point of sale the plague of food waste continues indeed household restaurant and food service waste accounts for 69 percent of the United States's annual food waste as a consumer and lover of food I've tried hard to minimize my waste but it can be easy to cook or by excess that ends up in the compost or trash for a family of four household food waste costs one thousand eight hundred dollars annually and with the average plate size expanding by 36 percent since 1960 and with refrigerators growing 30 percent in volume since 1972 it's tempting to buy more food just to fill up the space over buying and the inevitable cleaning out the refrigerator activity that comes with it can also be attributed to buy one get one promotions or purchasing in our appliances supermarkets and even our plates are all nudging us to buy or in addition to over buying in the United States there's also a severe lack of clarity when it comes to dealing with expiration dates and spoiled goods there are no federal laws regulating cell buy or expiration dates as a result labels can mean basically anything depending on where you buy your food in Missoula Montana for example milk sell by date is set at 12 days after pasteurization even though the standard is 21 to 24 days that's because in most cases these dates are set by the milk producer and not a regulatory service as one grocery vendor in Missoula laments the 12 day sell by date tells a consumer nothing it's just an arbitrary number somebody came up with with no scientific backing whatsoever this lack of clear information regarding when a product actually goes bad means that households throw out perfectly edible food well before it expires in short there are marketing labeling cultural and psychological forces all coming to play in order to make food waste a large problem in the United States ultimately there are many vectors by which food becomes waste whether in your own home or even before it makes it onto a grocery store shelf but there is hope there are very tangible solutions to these problems at all levels of the supply chain at the individual level solutions look like creating a plan to use all the food you buy or using sites like eat by date to truly understand whether your food has expired and then composting it instead of throwing it in the trash you can even get involved with groups like Food Not Bombs which has local chapters all over the world that recover food from local restaurants and stores and give it to those in need on the supply side solutions look like reducing food demand by eliminating buy-one-get-one promotions donating food that's not fit for sale or even using boxes and props to maintain the illusion of abundance without needed excess produce and on a policy level this means actions like standardizing expiration dates to accurately reflect the science behind foodborne illnesses food waste is a preventable problem an addressing food waste means tackling both climate change and hunger in the process we don't necessarily need fancy farming technologies to create more food for people who go hungry we just need to work together on every level to more equitably distribute the resources we already have and in doing so we not only mitigate climate change but also create stronger communities when I started making YouTube videos my motion graphics skills were terrible I had to teach myself basically everything and it took forever luckily you don't have to go through that because now you can learn about animation and video editing all in one place skill share skill share is an online learning community with thousands of classes covering topics like motion graphic design video creation and much much more skill share has been an essential way for me to develop my motion graphics skills in order to create more engaging and informational videos I especially loved Evan from Polly Mathers class on YouTube video essays which explains how to produce a video like mine from start to finish if you're at all interested in making animated explainer videos I'd highly recommend it above all else though skill share is affordable when you join their annual premium membership you'll have unlimited access to high-quality classes for under $10 a month so join the community of creators and learners on Skillshare today with a special offer the first 1,000 of my subscribers to click the link in the description will get a two month free trial of premium membership hi everyone Charlie here I hope you're doing well and staying safe I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my patreon supporters who give me financial stability and uncertain times like these they're really the backbone of this whole operation and help bring consistency to my channel so thank you so much and I'll see you in two weeks

Channel: Our Changing Climate

Views: 243,886

Keywords: Video Essay, Environment, Climate Change, Our Changing Climate, OCC, food waste, fjallraven kanken, princess mononoke, food loss and food waste, food waste environment, food waste environmental impact, food waste in america, food waste in schools, food waste john oliver, landfill, composting, compost, hunger, trt world, video essay film

Id: 1MpfEeSem_4

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020