How much does eating locally-produced food help the climate problem? What are the other potential environmental and social benefits of eating locally-grown/produced food? Do you have a food garden in your school or at home? If not, do you want one?
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Buying Locally vs Composting
Buying locally is a really good idea when you’re thinking about carbon footprint, but sometimes it’s not always practical. I live in Sacramento, and it’s supposed to be the Farm to Fork capital of America, but a lot of the locally grown things where I live is expensive and goes bad quickly. I also imagine if you live somewhere like a city away from the agriculture it can be really difficult to buy locally grown produce. I think the best down the middle solution is composting your food waste either at home or at a facility. This will prevent landfills from getting bigger and producing more Co2, in fact astdr.cdc.gov found that landfills produce 60% of the carbon in the atmosphere right now! Composting food scraps is inexpensive, and has an impact on both the quality of our food and our carbon footprint.
Great point! There are a huge variety of options for people who want to reduce their carbon footprint. We can definitely buy locally as a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we produce, but it's nice to know that there are other options as well, since one thing may not work for everyone. Composting is amazing for the environment, and it is something you can do right at home!