A significant portion of food production across the country goes to waste, and dozens of local officials are calling on EPA to help reduce this in their own communities.
More than one-third of the food produced in the U.S. is never eaten. Much of it ends up in landfills, where it generates tons of methane that hastens climate change. That's why more than 50 local officials signed onto a letter Tuesday calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to help municipal governments cut food waste in their communities.
It's a more urgent problem than ever, said Weslynne Ashton, a professor of environmental management and sustainability at the Illinois Institute of Technology who was not involved with the EPA reports. Americans have been conditioned to expect abundance at grocery stores and on their plates, and it's expensive to pull all that food out of the waste stream. 'I think it is possible to get zero organic waste into landfills,' Ashton said.
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