Study: Nearly half of U.S. seafood wasted

File photo courtesy: Wikipedia

Thursday, September 24, 2015, 5:22 PM - Earlier this week, it was revealed U.S. trash dumps took in 262 million metric tonnes of solid waste in 2012 -- more than double previous estimates.

One of the largest components filling landfills south of the border -- and here in Canada as well -- is food waste.

Statistics suggest Americans waste as much of 40% of the country's food supply each year -- equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month.

Canada isn't faring much better, wasting $31 billion in food annually.

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Now, a new study out of the John Hopkins School of Health has revealed that up to 47% of the edible U.S. seafood supply is wasted each year, with consumers being the biggest offenders. 

The findings raise concerns for a number of reasons, but two of the biggest are over-fishing and habitat destruction, both of which have put a huge dent in the global fish supply.

The research team compiled data from a number of sources, leading to the conclusion the U.S. public wastes about 2.3 billion pounds of edible seafood each year.

Of that:

• 330 million pounds are lost at the distribution and retail level
• 573 million pounds are lost when fishers catch the wrong species and discard it (called bycatch)
• 1.3 billion pounds are wasted by consumers

The study's authors say they hope the findings will lead to the development of waste prevention strategies.

The authors suggest limiting bycatch, making commerical seafood portion sizes smaller and encouraging the purchase of frozen seafood.

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The findings have been published in the journal Global Environmental Change.

Source: John Hopkins School of Health