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Austen Andrews
English 101
Dr. Christopher
December 9th 2015

Changing Current
Garbage is something that many people dont think about when they are creating it. It is
engraved into our culture to create garbage through the many products we use in everyday life.
The truth is garbage could be the next biggest environmental problem to hit the world. As
garbage begins to pile up much of it like plastics does not decompose. This causes growing piles
of garbage in landfills that arent shrinking. In the article The Scandal of Food Waste written
by Tristam Stuart, a winner of the international environmental award argues on just how large
scale of a problem food waste is in our surrounding society. Stuart explains food as a
disposable commodity (The Scandal of Food Waste). Garbage is a downward spiral of a
problem as there are many different ways it is being produced all around us. These include
factories as well as our own homes. Americans are failing to realize the effect of how throwing a
few food scraps away a day could be causing a bigger impact than just filling the trash bin at
home. Supermarkets are one of the biggest wasters of food as they try to create a good image by
only selling the finest of foods. The blemished but perfectly edible food never even makes it to
the shelf. America is not the only one affected by this problem that we are in. Countries
everywhere in the world are faced with garbage problems and growing sizes of landfills. Articles
suggest that other countries are doing things to make a difference so as Americans we can do this
too. To help solve this problem we must force supermarkets to change their habits and give to

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the needy instead of the landfills. If supermarkets want to use sell by dates, there are plenty of
charities that would enjoy that perfectly edible food.
Supermarkets are large retailers and if youve ever been in one Im sure youve selected
the perfect ingredients for a meal from their array of food selection. The Supermarkets are
always clean and have very neat and tidy displays. But where does this food come from?
Farmers and other production companies all sell to this market for distribution. When the product
is sold and received by a store something called a sell by date is now attached to this product.
The idea of having this clean image with nice displays is what the supermarket tries to achieve
with this date. The sell by date was created to select a date for the product based on the end of
when it was best, not to say when it is inedible as some people misunderstand. The sell by does
no justice in the world of waste in any country of the world. Once the food goes past its sell by
date the food is considered worthless and thrown out by the large chain supermarkets. This food
is often fully edible but it is not recognized as such because of the infamous sell by date. Some
people may ask how large scale is this problem? According to Brad Plumer a writer for The
Washington Post says the USDA estimates that supermarkets toss out $15 billion worth of
unsold food each year (How the U.S. Manages to Waste $165 Billion in Food Each Year).
Plumer claims stores would rather have an oversupply than have their store look empty or food
that is close to its sell by date. Plumer says the food being thrown away is often 2 to 3 days
before the sell by date as well (How the U.S. Manages to Waste $165 Billion in Food Each
Year). The consumers I feel can also be blamed for this as we are the ones causing this. If we
dont want the food, its understandable why supermarkets would throw it out. However,
someone else could be in need of this perfectly edible food and cant afford it. This is the true
problem of the situation. Homeless shelters everywhere take donated food however the
supermarkets only donate to landfills as its easier than shipping food every day.

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In the article The scandal of food waste by the national environmental award winning
English author Tristam Stewart, the problem of sell by dates is explored in more details including
more than just large scale numbers. Stuart conducts a trial and test of a local garbage bin from a
large grocery chain. Stuart found
28 chilled high-quality ready-meals (including lasagna, prawn linguine, beef pie, chicken
korma with rice, chicken tikka with rice, chicken with madeira wine and porcini
mushrooms); 16 cornish pastries; 83 yogurts, 23 rolls; one chocolate cake; five pasta
salads; six large melons; 223 individual items of other assorted fruit and vegetables,
including nectarines, oranges, papaya, fair-trade organic bananas, organic carrots, organic
leeks and avocados, seven punnets of soft fruit, one pack of mushrooms, six bags of
potatoes; a bag of onions and two thriving potted herbs (chives and parsley); one almost
full box of serving-size pots of margarine; a box of serving-size UHT milk cartons;
several bunches of flowers and a potted orchid. Stuart says Apart from the flowers, not
one of these items was unfit to eat. (The Scandal of Food Waste)
Stuart dug deep and came up with eye opening results out of only one supermarket chain trash
bin. If one person thought of all the supermarkets around them 95% of people would come up
with a lot more than only one of these stores. So think of this amount of garbage in all of those
supermarket trash bins getting uneaten and hauled off to landfills every week.
This amount of disposal by supermarkets is happening in places all over the world. Many
European countries are also faced with this problem of garbage. As the United States we are not
the only one with sell by dates, however we are still one of the last ones to try to take action
against them. In an article France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities by
French writer and correspondent for The Guardian news Angelique Chrisafis the differences
between countries are explained. In American supermarkets food is thrown away in mass
amounts daily. France has taken a stand against this however and put a good foot forward in

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stopping this large waste problem in its tracks. In the article Chrisafis explains how France is
making large supermarket chains help control this problem. The French government is forcing
large supermarket chains to donate their edible food that would normally go to the garbage bins
to homeless shelters and other charities in need. France is stopping two major problems in one
solution by focusing on world hunger and waste. According to Chrisafis this simple change
forces stores under law to send the food to the charities or otherwise they are faced with
punishment including fines of 75,000 euros and can even give prison time including two years.
The problem wasnt just the transportation Chrisafis explains it was also that supermarkets were
vandalizing the food so people rummaging through their trash bins could not eat it. Chrisafis
adds that often they would waste lots of money on bleach to pour on the food (France to Force
Big Supermarkets to Give Unsold Food to Charities). This is the first step in making a change
for the better and people everywhere should be glad France has taken this step in the right
direction so hopefully people in the United States can follow that lead. Food waste of perfectly
edible food is honestly a demented topic to talk about as if it is not being used shouldnt it be
donated instead of destroyed. Poverty is also a large scale problem and its practically large
retailers holding food in front of a starving person teasing them with it. The idea of them
maintaining a perfect image by having perfect displays actually translates to them having a bad
one when you look at the procedures of how these chains are keeping the store to their code.
Lets face the facts were the customers and the people buying so we should call the shots on
what businesses should do as we have the power.
Although we have the power to make this change some people may say that food waste
isnt a problem yet and we shouldnt worry about this situation at this point in time. Often
though when problems are overlooked they become worse than they ever were until they are
irreparable. Food waste will be one of those problems especially here in a forever growing

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country like America. According to Pulitzer prize winner and garboligist Edward Humes each
American throws away a 102 tons legacy (Humes 31) in a lifetime. Around 2 tons is an
average cars weight so 51 cars worth of weight in garbage is being produced from a single
person here in America. The population is constantly growing here and the more people
throwing things away is the more tons of trash every year. It will only get worse and we need to
start cutting down now before it gets worse and America is placed into panic mode. If we start
cutting down on the problems through simple fixes like the super market waste situation we can
start solving the problems now rather than waiting till it is irreparable.
Waste is a major problem here in the United States and everywhere in the world.
However, everything is fixable if it is done in a timely manner. The problem of food waste and
world hunger was able to be tackled by France and if it is able to be done by another country it
can be done by America as well. America needs to take the same path France did and threaten
punishment to supermarkets who dont donate their perfectly edible food to people in need and to
charities or organizations that could be using it for good. If they want to use sell by dates
perfectly edible food should be given to the people needing it. The fines should be larger for the
United States supermarkets and we would then be able to make stores cooperate by making them
follow this simple gesture of giving to charities. If we can cut down on this amount and eliminate
supermarket food waste caused by sell by dates, we can cut down on the $15 billion of edible
food waste that is thrown into landfills every year. This is the most logical thing to do as it is
hardly a problem for supermarkets. The ability to cut down on waste now while it is still able to
be done is the ideal and most optimal solution. It is not only solving the waste problem but also
helping solve world hunger.

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Works Cited
Chrisafis, Angelique. "France to Force Big Supermarkets to Give Unsold Food to Charities." The
Guardian. The Guardian, 22 May 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
Humes, Edward. Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash. New York: Avery, 2012.
Plumer, Brad. "How the U.S. Manages to Waste $165 Billion in Food Each Year." Washington
Post. The Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
Stuart, Tristam. "The Scandal of Food Waste." Financial Times. N.p., 04 July 2009. Web. 30
Nov. 2015.