Point Food Waste

There is little to no awareness of the damage caused when sending food waste to landfills. We hardly pay attention when discarding food waste; we do it automatically. In the United States we generate 31.7 million tons of food waste each year; that is 12.5% of the total waste stream and the second largest component of the national waste stream. Only 2.6% of the food waste does not end up in landfills.

1. To put things into perspective, every day in the United States we generate approximately 86,900 metric tons of food waste; that is enough waste to fill 6,310 garbage trucks. That's 2,300.000 truck loads a year.
2. One hundred billion pounds of food is wasted in this country per year. That is equal to 1900 pounds of food every minute of the day.


Rotten food accounts for 34% of all methane emissions, and it is twenty times more damaging to the environment than CO2. Landfills are the second largest single human source of methane emissions in the United States, accounting for 23% of all methane sources. Treating food waste onsite avoids the increased production of CO2 from transportation and methane, leachate, and potential pollutant runoff into local water sources at landfills.

If we can remove wet waste from our waste stream, we can immediately save money by decreasing disposable costs, which are charged by weight, reduce CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, minimize vehicle traffic risks at the site, and reach sustainable goals, among many other positive things. Consume less, eat proper portions to insure well being, spend less and buy what you need when you need it and keep waste out of the landfills.