Food waste is one of the most significant, yet solvable, contributors to climate change. In fact, leading climate research organizations consistently rank reducing food waste as one of the top solutions for limiting global warming, placing it ahead of transitioning to electric vehicles or solar power in terms of immediate impact.
The global scale of the problem is staggering. If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
When discarded food decomposes in a landfill, it lacks the oxygen to break down naturally. Instead, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 20-year period. Furthermore, when food is thrown away, all the precious resources used to grow, harvest, and transport it are wasted too—including about 21% of all global freshwater used for agriculture.
By intercepting this food, our rescue efforts last year prevented 8,035 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere. It can be hard to visualize what a number like that actually means in the real world, so we broke it down.
To put it in perspective, the environmental savings of last year’s rescued meals are equal to:
- 20.45 million miles driven by an average gas-powered car
- Taking 1,913 passenger vehicles off the road for an entire year
- Not burning 904,152 gallons of gasoline
- Providing a full year’s worth of energy use for 1,079 homes
- Saving 333.75 million gallons of water (which is enough to fill 505 Olympic swimming pools)
Every time you support our work, you aren’t just putting a meal on a table. You are actively conserving water, drastically reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting the planet we all share.