How often have you mindlessly tossed out a mushy, old head of lettuce, thinking that it will break down in a landfill within a few days or maybe a week? It’s only lettuce. It’s natural, so it can’t take more than a few weeks, you think to yourself.
In reality, it takes 25 years for a head of lettuce to decompose in a landfill! When food gets dumped in a landfill, it tries to break down, but it lacks the available oxygen to decompose. Therefore, the trapped food not only mummifies, but also releases methane gas into the atmosphere. This greenhouse gas is approximately 30x more potent than even carbon dioxide and makes food waste a main contributor to global warming.
Whether it's during the farming, transportation, selling, or the consumption stage, food waste depletes a tremendous amount of natural resources. Growing food requires 50% of the world's land and 80% of freshwater; however, much of the food we grow is left unharvested. In fact, 7% of all fields are considered "walk-by's", which means that they are left entirely unharvested and wasted due to environmental conditions and the consumer desire for cosmetic perfection.
Farmers have to meet these demands that consumers set, which leads to a continual cycle of wasted resources. If farmers instead grew for efficiency rather than market demand, less water, manpower, and land would be wasted