Transcript:
When a box of cereal says “best before July third,” that does not mean it will go bad on July third.
Food date labels vary, and in most cases, they do not indicate that food is unsafe to eat. For example, the label “best before” marks when food is at peak quality, and the label “sell by” indicates when stores should take it off the shelf.
But in a recent survey, Roni Neff of Johns Hopkins University found that many Americans mistakenly believe that they should immediately throw food out after its labeled date.
And according to the nonprofit ReFED, a partner on the survey, this causes a lot of food waste.
Neff: “They estimated that confusion about date labels is leading U.S. consumers to discard about 3 billion pounds of food … per year.”
That’s a problem for the climate. Growing and shipping all that wasted food emits carbon pollution. And as it rots in a landfill, it emits climate-warming methane.
Neff: “That’s a lot of greenhouse gas emissions that didn’t need to happen.”
ReFED estimates that standardizing food date labels to clarify their meaning could save over 400,000 tons of food each year. And that could prevent as much carbon pollution as taking half a million gas cars off the road.
Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media
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