Wasteful Americans

I came up with todays TJ take because of dinner. My mom questioned that Americans were wasteful after my sister shoved a huge piece of Peanut Butter cake in her face. I have seen the numbers before, but they are pretty shocking.

• 40% of the food in the United States is never eaten
• Globally, 4 billion tons of food is wasted each year
• America wasted 33.79 million tons of food in 2010, enough to fill the Empire State Building 91 times
• Every day, Americans waste enough food to fill up the Rose Bowl (a 90,000 seat football stadium)
• The US per capita waste has increased 50% since 1974
• If the US wasted 5% less food it would be enough to feed 4 million Americans and 15% less food wasted would feed 25 million Americans

Wasting Food Cost us this every year

• 25% of all freshwater used in the US
• 750 million Dollars per year just to dispose of the food Americans wasted
• 165 Billion Dollars per year just for household waste
• 300 million bottles of oil a year

Go to this website for more shocking facts (http://visual.ly/21-shocking-us-food-waste-facts-statistics)

These statistics for Americans are about 10x more than the 2nd country behind us compared to waste. The thing though, is it just isn't about being less wasteful or a small change, it has become this American attitude towards waste. I mean think about how many gallons of water you use brushing your teeth or doing dishes, more than what some in a developing country is even using. It has just been built into our holistic view of the world. Most of the food waste is because of over overproportioned meals, over cooking, and just buying stuff you might want and then throw away a year later. Now, I am not saying my family is clean, I bet you we are above the average. I look in some of our cabinets and it seems like we have stuff that we will just never eat. That is the thing though, we waste so much without even thinking about it. 

There are many problems that come with this. Everyone who lives in Cincinnati can see how big Rumpke gets every single year. In New York, there is a floating island of trash that is actually landmarked as one of the highest man-mad structures in the world and it is only trash from Staten Island. It will really have its cost in the long run. It takes 500 years for a diaper to degrade. . . 500 years. Our meals are big, we live big and everything is big, which causes a lot of health problems but also a lot of trash. It is not sustainable and hopefully there is a steady change within the next 20 years, or yet again, my generation will literally be dealing with the 'shit' left behind from the previous generation. 

That is TJs Take on Wasteful Americans.