Food waste is a serious problem in the United States. According to the nonprofit organization ReFED, 91 million tons of surplus food were produced nationwide in 2021.
There are a number of reasons to be frustrated by this development. For one, 35.9% of this total ended up in landfill, where it will contribute to methane production.
As the Environmental Defense Fund noted, in the first 20 years of its existence, this planet-warming gas is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the warming gases in the atmosphere.
Then there is the case where perfectly good food that could otherwise be eaten, nutritious or not, is thrown away because it cannot be sold.
It’s a waste of resources, from production to packaging to the transportation required to transport products to storage – and the food could even be helpful to disadvantaged local residents.
In a post on Reddit, a user uploaded an image of a shopping cart filled to the brim with 534 packages of Crunchy Cookie M&Ms that were labeled “destructible” at the Target store where they worked.
“All of these things are going to waste just because they’re being salvaged and we’re not allowed to take them anymore, and they’re most likely not going to be donated as intended,” they captioned the post. “And they’re good until next year.”
Photo credit: u/Individual-Thanks968 / Reddit
According to ReFED, retail produced 5.12 million tons of food waste in 2021, accounting for 5.6% of total food waste in the United States.
Overproduction accounts for 8.4% of total retail food waste, and these M&Ms are just a small example of the type of perfectly good items that can be thrown away. As the Redditor noted, they didn’t expire until the following year, so getting rid of them is a huge waste.
Commenters on the post were also angry about the store’s decision.
“They should be donated,” one user said, and another added, “Since the cost of food is so high, donations would be appreciated.”
It seems that there are a number of more imaginative solutions to make use of this food, and the sight of such unnecessary waste is an annoying example of inexplicable choices that can have a negative impact on the environment.
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