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Nearly 40 percent of food in America is wasted. 40 percent! At the same time, 50 million Americans don't have consistent, reliable access to food.1 We can and must do better.
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has introduced the Food Recovery Act, which aims to tackle and prevent food waste.
Tell your representative it's time for America to stop wasting so much food!
This bill outlines much-needed plans for decreasing food waste on farms and in retail, restaurants, schools, and other institutions. Additionally, it looks to reform and standardize food date labeling, and address food waste among consumers and within local infrastructure like composting.
One of the biggest contributing factors to food waste is "Use By / Sell By / Best By" dates. With the exception of baby formula, the federal government does not require any date labels.2
For all other food, these dates do not reflect a uniform standard and are often a best guess. Some food products could easily last a year or a year and a half past their "sell by" date.2 Meaning, if a company wanted to, they could shorten the product's shelf life to sell more of the item and that food likely gets thrown out long before it has actually gone rotten.
The Food Recovery Act calls for standardization of these dates and making them easier to read and find on packaging. Tackling "sell by" dates is just one example of how this bill would reduce food waste. This simple change would likely prevent consumers and sellers from throwing away perfectly good food just because of an arbitrary date.
Across the board our systems need to be reformed to reduce food waste and this bill tackles issues on all fronts. It is a big step in the right direction.
Tell your representative it's time for us all to stop wasting so much food!
We have no more time to waste -- take action and spread the word today!
In this together,
The SierraRise Team
Sources:
1. (Accessed 23 October 2017). "Food Waste." NRDC.
2. Geiling, N. (18 May 2016). "The ''sell by'' dates on our groceries are causing tons of food waste."
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