The U.S. produces a lot of food waste. This place wants to address it

"In a country famed for its large portion sizes, Americans toss out some 30-40% of the food produced. "We think of U.S. households wasting about a third of all their food that could be eaten," said Ted Jaenicke, a professor of agricultural economics at Pennsylvania State University who studies food waste and consumer purchasing behaviors. "Visually, that's buying three bags of groceries at the supermarket and putting one in the trash on your way out the door." Experts say the holiday season compounds the problem."

""If [food] ends up in a landfill, instead of being eaten or composted, then it is a really big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions," Jaenicke said. "Food waste in a landfill decomposes into methane. And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide." The EPA says that methane is some 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere."

Americans discard roughly 30–40% of food produced, with households wasting about one-third of edible food. Holiday meals increase waste, with an estimated 200 million pounds of turkey discarded each Thanksgiving. Much discarded food ends up in landfills and represents nearly a quarter of solid waste at those facilities. Food waste in landfills decomposes into methane, which the EPA estimates is about 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. If treated as a country, food waste emissions would rank as the third largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Production-level losses also contribute, driven by cosmetic standards and environmental crop damage. A recent report noted produce prices such as sweet potatoes rose about 37%.

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