Food Waste & Climate - Capitol Connection webinar
Watch live or later.
Tossed food scraps don't just make the air in our kitchen miasmic, they can release some truly noxious greenhouse gasses, too. When food is buried in big landfill piles, it often decomposes without oxygen. That releases methane, a particularly potent cause of climate change.
Unused food also wastes our natural resources. All that land, water, labor, and (literal) energy is put into growing, harvesting, preparing, and transporting food, only for it to be thrown away. As much as one-third of all food gets tossed.
Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency put these two food scrap effects—wasted energy and methane making—together and found that up to 8% of the United States' greenhouse gas emissions stem from them.
Discarding food levies an environmental toll, and as Michigan is focused on becoming carbon neutral, more people are looking to counter foods’ rotten impact. Leaders like Danielle Todd and Jennifer McCullen are rising to the challenge.
Todd is the executive director of Michigan Environmental Council member group Make Food Not Waste, which works to keep food out of landfills and slow climate change through education, upcycling, and advocacy. McCullen is the sustainability account manager for My Green Michigan, which hauls and composts food scraps and materials across the southern half of the Lower Peninsula—including at the Environmental Council office!
Join Todd and McCullen this Friday at our next Capitol Connection webinar to get a look into the world of food waste and composting and how we can utilize them to make a cleaner, more sustainable, and nicer-smelling state.
Can't make the event live? Register and we'll send you a recording.
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