This topic should matter to the environment, the earth, and to people on earth because we all live on this planet, and it's our only home. By taking little steps towards repairing and supporting earth, we are helping ourselves to survive. Also, it doesn't make sense to have so much food and not share it with people that have none. One third of all food produced in the U.S. is not consumed, and therefore, becomes garbage. It just makes sense to feed people with it instead of throwing it away.

Here's the problem. There is the obvious and immediate issue of people not having food to eat, and there's also the environmental impact of methane. When food is uneaten and then thrown away, it rots. The process of food being broken down and deteriorating produces greenhouse gases like methane - and a lot of it. Methane, and other greenhouse gases have very negative effects on the environment. NASA explains the impact of greenhouse gases very well: "During the day, the Sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth's surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." This keeps the earth at a warmer average temperature than it needs to be, for the survival of plants, animals, and us.

According to Climate Central, "the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is about 3.3 billion tons." All of that uneaten food ends up rotting! And producing Methane! Not to mention that the land where wasted food is originally grown or harvested, combined with the space occupied by food landfill, is approximately 1.4 billion hectares of land, a.k.a. 30 percent of the world's agricultural land, just devoted to rotting food. And finally, to quote FAO’s director-general, José Graziano da Silva, "We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste or be lost [...] when 870 million people go hungry every day." That's a lot of greenhouse gas, a lot of starving people, and a large problem.

There are several types of "solutions." For my project, I have chosen to focus on redistributing unused food to homeless individuals, or to nonprofit homeless shelters, food pantries, food drives, or soup kitchens. The easiest way to go about this would be to gather up the non-perishable food from your home every 1-3 months, as well as the food that is still fresh that your household will not be able to finish before the expiration date, at least once a month, and bring it to homeless people that are asking for food or money. If you have people anxiety, like many people do, another option is to drop unused or un-needed food to nonprofit shelters/ soup kitchens/ whenever you can (recommended every 1-3 months also). The point is just to get the food out there, and into the hands of people that need it, instead of into the trash.

Soup kitchens and food pantries always need food! According to an article from CBS news in 2014, the need for emergency food in NYC is always high, and nearly 60 percent of soup kitchens in NY reported that they were running out of food, following the food stamp program's cut in benefits for its recipients in recent years. While some soup kitchens ask for money donations or volunteer work, others accept food donations. For example, Food Bank for NYC is one of the largest programs intended to collect food and re-distribute it to local soup kitchens. Their website even says, "Moving? Cleaning? Extra food in your pantry?" They also have a section on their website where you can put in your location and it will list local food pantries, soup kitchens, and senior centers that you can donate to or visit in your area.

PHOTO CREDIT: Move For Hunger