The Problem

Food waste in schools

In schools alone, over 500,000 tons of food is wasted each year. There are many different reasons as to why food is wasted but the main reasons are:

-being full

-the food went bad/spoiled

-the food isn't edible

Why does this affect people?

About 1 in 7 people in America deal with food insecurity, and most of them are children. Many people who are not food insecure throw away edible food which is wasted instead of given to people who are in need of food. So while many people do over consume and waste food, there are still people who don't have a sufficient source of food. The US population is around 347 million people, so that makes around 50 million people hungry each day.

This photo was taken on April 5th, 2025 in NYC.

This doesn't just affect adults...

1 in 5 kids in the United States are living with hunger. That's nearly 14 million children, which has increased from last year. Many groups including IRUSA and USDA have worked together to try and help this current problem. They are involved in efforts to raise money, reduce food waste, change laws and provide food for individuals. The picture on the left includes a picture of a billboard in NYC to spread awareness for this topic. The IRUSA promotes their organization in major cities to try and get more involvement and awareness. Creating programs and changing laws involving food waste could help the number of children going hungry drastically.

Affecting more than just humans

Food waste impacts more than just people, it plays a pretty big role in greenhouse gas emissions and negative effects to the environment.

By wasting food, we are wasting fresh water. Given that countries have a severe water shortage, with countries being predicted to be uninhabitable in a few decades, conserving freshwater should be a global mission.

Researchers determined that we spend over $220 billion in growing, transporting and processing almost 70 million tons of food that eventually ends up in landfills.

Need for Government Involvement

The question of where to find the money for funding food waste solutions is a big topic. This is where the government gets involved. One of the most important pieces to reducing food waste is utilizing government resources. The money would be used to find solutions for food waste specific to each school, whether that be putting compost bins on their property or changing the amount of food brought into the schools altogether.

Survey

To figure out why food waste happens at Lake Shore, we sent out a survey to our students and staff here to find some answers. Here are the results from the survey. This survey included responses from 83 people: 62.7% staff and 37.3% students.

Question: How many times per week do you throw out extra food at lunch?

The highest response, 43.4% meaning that people say they sometimes throw out food at lunch.

Question: If you throw away food, why do you?

When people throw out their food, the most common responses are that they are full or don't like what they have or what they are served.

Question: Overall, how would you rate the cafeteria food on a scale of 1-5?

Most people don't like the school food or don't eat it at all and would rather bring food from home.

Question: Do you think the school has a problem with food waste?

Most people agreed and said that there is a problem with food waste, and commented more about it. If you look to the right, here are some people's thoughts.

yes-many students take items like fruit and then just toss it in the garbage.
yes I see a lot of people throw out food that could be composted instead
Absolutely. What we are serving students is a sin.
The poison they serve in the cafeteria is appalling how do you expect kids to eat this cheaply made processed food and think straight? This food literally promotes metabolic disease and sickness.
Yes, I constantly throw out my food because of the poor taste

Overall, most people are currently not happy with the quality of the schools food and due to that, a lot of the food served is wasted. Having good quality food options lessens the waste produced at schools which could be a factor as to why Lake Shore produces food waste.

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