US | food 40% of US Food Goes to Waste Average family of 4 tosses $2,300 worth per year, says NRDC study By John Johnson Posted Aug 21, 2012 5:49 PM CDT Updated Aug 21, 2012 6:20 PM CDT Copied Customers select produce at a supermarket in Chicago in this file photo. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) The LA Times takes note of a study on American food from the Natural Resources Defense Council with some eye-popping facts and figures on waste: About 40% of food in the US supply chain goes uneaten A family of four tosses $2,275 worth of food each year, which translates into 20 pounds per person each month Americans waste 50% more food today than in the 1970s, and 10 times as much as people in Southeast Asia Supermarket produce aisles are bountiful at a cost: Some $15 billion in fruits and vegetables goes unsold each year Uneaten food is the single biggest component of municipal solid waste in landfills Read the full study here. Read These Next A White House press briefing got pretty heated Thursday. Taylor Swift gets emotional over UK attack in new Disney+ docuseries. Peggy Noonan: Kirk assassination starting to look 'epochal.' Liam Neeson's reps have some PR spin to do over an anti-vax film. Report an error