Each year, Americans throw out 66 billion pounds of food \u2014 organic material wasting away at the bottom of a landfill. While successful programs recycle tons of aluminum cans, glass, plastic, cardboard, and newspaper and help account for 63 percent of waste diverted from landfills in California, you can\u2019t say the same about table scraps. With no widespread re-use and few programs, food waste has emerged as one of the biggest categories of refuse filling up the nation\u2019s landfills, making up 18 percent of the trash buried in California landfills, according to state records.<\/p>\n
Aside from the social issues of Americans wasting billions of pounds of food every year, there\u2019s an environmental problem. Organic material decomposing in landfills creates methane, which can leak into the atmosphere. Methane is 87 times more potent in terms of warming the Earth than carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, scientists point out.<\/p>\n
The double-whammy effect on landfill space and climate change has made food waste a prime target for recycling by environmental groups, the legislature, city, county and state agencies and private garbage companies, spurring a new kind of recycling.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood waste is really a big problem,\u201d said Heather Jones, spokesperson for CalRecycle, the state agency overseeing recycling. \u201cIf we get programs in place, they can make a big difference and quickly, as to how much goes to landfills.\u201d<\/p>\n