Americans throw away about a third of all edible food that they buy per year. That’s almost 30 billion pounds (13 billion kg) of food a year, 11 billion (4 billion kg) of which are fruits and vegetables. On a day-by-day basis, that’s about 1 pound (0.45 kg) of food per person per day. In financial terms, that’s a waste of around $400 US Dollars (USD) per person per year.
More facts about American eating habits:
Seventeen percent of the trash that Americans send to landfills is food waste.
Food banks report that 20 percent more people have come to them asking for food in recent years — but donations have gone down 9 percent. One study estimated that a mere 4 billion pounds (1.8 billion kg) of food would be enough to feed the hungry in America — that’s less than one-fourth of what gets thrown out. About 40 million people in America do not have a regular source of food.
Processing American food waste takes more than 350 million barrels of oil every year.