Rotting food waste emits 5 times more greenhouse gases than planes

Rotting food waste is causing up to 10 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions – five times more than the entire aviation sector, the UN’s environment agency warned this week.If overlooked, food waste represents a key driver of the climate crisis, according the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), but tools are already being deployed to tackle that threat, from black soldier flies to empowering waste pickers across the world.Kitchen table woesFood waste encompasses everything from unfinished meals to spoiled crops (that’s food that is lost after harvest and before reaching stores). The most polluting form of waste from the kitchen table however is the rotting food which ends up in landfills. When organic matter such as uneaten food is buried in landfills and deprived of oxygen, it interacts with micro-organisms to produce methane.Driving methane emissionsGreenhouse gas, which is currently responsible for nearly one third of global warming, is particularly polluting. It traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, the UN warns. Importantly, this decomposing food is one of the main drivers of methane emissions worldwide. In the United States, for instance...