Topic-

Food waste is the unused and uneaten food that is created during production, processing, retail, or consumption. The FWCG focuses on reducing food waste from local communities in a variety of easy and accessible ways that work for busy families.

Why do you care?-

Our group cares about this issue because it affects people of all walks of life and it's quite easy to prevent as long as people are educated about their impact when they throw out food. We need to educate people about what good things can happen when they use good habits to prevent food waste.

Why is food waste important? (explanation)-

• The National Resource Defense Council says that up to 40 percent of the food in the United States is never eaten. But at the same time, one in eight Americans struggles to put enough food on the table (source 2). People need to reduce the amount of food they purchase and begin saving leftovers in order to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills.
• It is important to find out how we can conserve food in order to protect the environment and prevent global warming. The release of carbon from decomposition and production of food causes massive resource depletion and release of greenhouse gases increases the temperature of the atmosphere. Every piece of food wasted plays an essential role in global warming.
• Food waste is detrimental to the environment because it also wastes a great amount of resources that are used to produce the food. It also releases a great amount of carbon when it decomposes in the landfill and never gets recycled. Food waste is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 8 percent of total global emissions. If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitting country in the world, after China and the U.S.
• Food waste is a global issue that affects all people because it increases global warming, reduces space for animal habitats by taking up space at landfills, and can end up in public recreation areas.
• The food production industry and the sales industry are the main culprits of food waste, but individual homes can still reduce food waste by composting, organizing their homes, and saving leftovers. Better developed countries that have more access to food and spend more money on food that ends up in the dump tend to be the culprit when it comes to post-production food waste. Our group focuses on local food waste reduction in home but to learn more about pushing the government to reduce food waste click here:

https://www.nrdc.org/issues/drive-federal-action-reduce-food-waste

• Overall food waste is projected to increase by 33% within the next ten years. This means that if no body tries to stop this food waste epidemic, people will continue to waste more and more food without considering the consequences (source 3).
• According to the Environmental Protection Agency the USDA, the EPA, and the FDA announced the signing of a joint agency formal agreement under the Winning on Reducing Food Waste initiative in October of 2018. The agreement is aimed at improving coordination and communication across federal agencies attempting to better educate Americans on the impacts and importance of reducing food loss and waste (Source one).