July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers

The guide highlights that approximately 63 million tons of food are wasted annually in the United States, primarily in supermarkets, restaurants, and home kitchens. It advocates for three main actions to reduce environmental impact: shopping prudently through menu planning and freezing leftovers, increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables to lower greenhouse gas emissions and resource use, and composting food scraps to avoid the emission of methane in landfills, which traps 24 times more heat than carbon dioxide.

• The United States experiences significant annual food loss and waste, totaling approximately 63 million tons, with the majority occurring in home kitchens, restaurants, and supermarkets.
• Composting food scraps is environmentally preferable to landfill disposal because food rotting in landfills emits methane, a gas that traps 24 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
• Increasing the proportion of fruits and vegetables in a diet—specifically filling half of the plate with these items—reduces impacts on energy use, water, land, and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Reducing food waste saves the embedded resources required for food production, including wildlife habitat, energy, water, and land.

APA

WWF International (n.d.). July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers. https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/tips/july-4th-and-food-waste-some-tips-from-our-founding-fathers/

Chicago

WWF International. July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers. n.d. https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/tips/july-4th-and-food-waste-some-tips-from-our-founding-fathers/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=WWF International |title=July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/tips/july-4th-and-food-waste-some-tips-from-our-founding-fathers/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wwfinternationalndjuly, author = {{WWF International}}, title = {{July 4th and food waste: Some tips from our Founding Fathers}}, institution = {WWF International}, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/tips/july-4th-and-food-waste-some-tips-from-our-founding-fathers/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }