Wasted Food Equals Wasted Oil

Is American food waste a major contributor to oil consumption? Energy wasted by people throwing away edible food in the US exceeds the energy content of the oil and gas extracted from the ocean around the US coastline, according to a recent article in the New Scientist. Put another way, if less food was thrown away in the US then there would be less need to drill for oil and gas in extreme offshore locations.

According to the New Scientist, 16% of US energy consumption is used to make food, including growing and transportation but with wastage of up to 25% that means 2150 trillion kilojoules of energy are lost, or rather thrown away and wasted, each year.

If the figures are correct and there are 6.12 million kilojoules of energy in a barrel of oil (42 US gallons, 159 litres), then the equivalent of 351 million barrels of oil (17.6 days of US annual consumption) are wasted when perfectly good food is thrown away in the garbage. If the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is estimated at 60,000 barrels a day, then this wastage is equivalent to 5857 days (16 years) of the well leaking, or each US citizen (310 million people) wasting about 1.1 barrels of oil per year.

The New Scientist goes on to say that the wastage is more than the planned biofuel production from grains. Dairy foods and vegetables are the most energy-wasted foods disposed of in the trashcan.

Via New Scientist & Wikipedia

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