Why shouldn't we throw food away?

Lunch is over, and a few bites of your sandwich sit on the plate. Perhaps you have watched good food disappear into a bin and wondered: why shouldn't we throw food away?

Let's follow a tomato from a farm. The farmer uses land and water to grow it for someone to eat. These are resources, useful things we draw on to make or grow what we need.

Once the tomato grows ripe, a driver brings it to a shop. The truck uses fuel along the way. Bringing food to us uses resources too, even before we take a bite.

At lunchtime, someone adds that tomato to your sandwich. When you eat, your body uses food to help you grow and play. Food has an important job beyond tasting good.

If good food goes into the bin instead, nobody gets that help from it. We also waste the resources that went into making that food. A small leftover can carry quite a lot of work.

What happens next depends on where the rubbish goes. If workers bury food under piles of rubbish, hardly any air can reach it. Can you guess what the food might make as it slowly rots there?

The food can make a gas as it rots. Tiny living things break down the food without air and make that gas as they work.

That gas is methane, an invisible gas that acts like an extra blanket around Earth. You cannot see this methane blanket, but it can still make a difference.

Methane holds in heat, making Earth warmer. Sending less food to buried rubbish helps keep that extra blanket thinner. That's another reason a small change at mealtimes can help.

Resources. Methane. We shouldn't throw good food away because it is meant to feed someone, growing and delivering it uses resources, and buried food waste can make methane that warms Earth.

Your small, thoughtful choices can help good food do its job of feeding someone.