Food waste problems and how to solve them

Food waste is one of the many problems the world faces even to this day, particularly in this country. It is considered to be a threat to a healthy environment with all the resources people use to create the food such as land and trees. Not only that, it’s morally wrong as well because there are other hungry people in the world that needed the food that has been wasted more than anyone else. The amount of food that is wasted in the United States is about 30 to 40 percent according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. This is the type of problem is also present even here on campus.

I am a student that works for a catering company where we specialize in serving to students and staff members at the Tecumseh Dining Center. Usually I handle cleaning the plates, cups, silverware and many others. I’m also tasked to throw away the trash from the conveyor belt where everyone puts their finished dishes on as well as cleaning it up. Why am I mentioning all of this? During my time I spent working back of the house, I tend to notice that there are foods that look like that no one took a bite out of. For example, cookies that look brand new, pizzas that look like it came out of the oven and a big plate full of fries. The conveyor belt has to be clean by the end of the day so the things that end up on it are considered dirty. That isn’t always the case, however. For example, if food gets dropped on the floor by accident, then I would understand wanting to throw it away. But the point still stands, it is a problem because it is wasteful and what’s the point of getting food if you aren’t gonna eat it?

So here is my suggestion to how we could prevent food waste being a big problem on campus. I would suggest that students should only get what they intend to eat. I believe that not wasting food would be beneficial to not only to the campus, but possibly to the country as well.