Every year the United States waists 119 billions pound of food which is equivalent to 130 billion meals, which costs about 408 billion dollars, and nearly 40% of food is wasted in the United States; it’s a problem because many other things are wasted like water and energy it takes to grow, harvest, transport and package fruits and vegetables, not just that but also many other things.

Schools greatly contribute to all the food wasted, according to Earth Share about 530,000 tons of food is wasted in schools per year. There are many reasons why schools waste this much food but the main reason is probably that schools make students pick a fruit or a vegetable and the reason for that is because they want you to balance the food you eat which is understandable, schools should enhance and promote healthier food habits but what’s the point if students aren’t even going to eat it and throw it away.

A solution for this at least in schools could be for schools to put baskets by the trash cans so that students put their vegetables in there instead of tossing them into the trash can, if schools don’t want to give the fruit back to students they could donate it to people in need. Schools can also allow students to choose if they want to get a fruit or vegetable in the first place which is a better option. What also happens fairly often is that students just eat their fruit or vegetable and don’t eat their hot lunch, something that can be done about this is to give students more options of what to eat or before each school year schools can also have students vote on what they would and wouldn’t like schools to serve; either way, there are many solutions to this schools should do better so there is less food waste.

It’s not just schools that waste all this food, supermarkets, restaurants, and consumers also contribute to this because sometimes It looks like food has gone bad or the expiration date has passed and people believe their food has gone bad and throw it out either way. Much food is wasted due to that.

The United States and the rest of the world should do better on not wasting food because, in the end, it does affect us, rotten food produces methane which is a greenhouse gas that’s even more powerful than that carbon dioxide and all that leads to global warming, also many people go hungry every day; of course, everyone is guilty of wasting food but if we can do something different even if it’s small we can lower those numbers and not waste so much food.