GED Essay Example: Food Waste

With growing awareness of sustainability, the issue of food waste often appears in GED writing prompts. This GED essay food waste example demonstrates how to compare different viewpoints, use evidence to support your stance, and craft a clear, organized response that earns a high score on the RLA test.

Read the prompt and task instruction below. Your task is to write a well-organized extended response of at least 300 words in 45 minutes, as shown in the Model Response that follows.

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Task Instruction

Analyze the arguments presented in the two speeches. In your response, develop an argument in which you explain how one position is better supported than the other. Incorporate relevant and specific evidence from both sources to support your argument. Remember, the better-argued position is not necessarily the position with which you agree. This task should take approximately 45 minutes to complete.

Passage A

Fixing Food Waste for Good

By Dr. Emily Wagner, Professor of Sustainable Development

Food waste reduction programs offer communities an effective strategy for addressing environmental problems while promoting economic efficiency and social responsibility. Americans waste approximately 40% of the food supply annually, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, and unnecessary environmental degradation. Comprehensive food waste solutions can significantly decrease methane emissions from landfills while conserving water, energy, and agricultural resources used in food production.

The environmental impact of food waste extends far beyond simple disposal concerns. When organic matter decomposes in landfills without oxygen, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change. Food waste represents the largest component of municipal solid waste, accounting for approximately 22% of landfill content. By implementing comprehensive reduction programs, communities can substantially decrease their carbon footprint while extending landfill capacity and reducing disposal costs.

Water conservation provides another compelling environmental benefit of food waste sustainability initiatives. Agricultural production consumes approximately 70% of global freshwater resources, making food waste essentially a waste of this precious resource. When families and businesses reduce food waste, they indirectly conserve millions of gallons of water used for irrigation, processing, and transportation. This conservation becomes increasingly important as many regions face water scarcity and drought conditions.

Economic benefits of food waste reduction programs extend to both individual households and entire communities. The average American family discards $1,500 worth of food annually, representing a significant financial loss that reduction programs can help minimize. Businesses that implement commercial food waste solutions often discover cost savings through improved inventory management, reduced disposal fees, and tax benefits from food donations. Restaurants, grocery stores, and institutions can redirect surplus food to charitable organizations rather than paying for disposal.

Food waste reduction programs also address food insecurity by connecting surplus food with people in need. Food banks and charitable organizations rely heavily on donations from businesses and institutions to serve low-income families. When grocery stores, restaurants, and schools participate in organized food recovery programs, they provide nutritious meals for vulnerable populations while reducing waste disposal costs. This creates a win-win solution that benefits both the environment and community welfare.

Educational components of food waste reduction programs help consumers develop better shopping, storage, and meal planning habits. Many people waste food due to confusion about expiration dates, improper storage methods, or poor portion planning. Community education initiatives teach practical skills like meal planning, proper food storage, how to compost food waste, and creative use of leftovers that can dramatically reduce household waste while saving money on grocery bills.

Implementation of food waste reduction programs creates employment opportunities in waste management, food recovery, and community education sectors. Composting facilities, food rescue organizations, and educational programs require staff to operate effectively. These jobs often provide meaningful work that contributes to environmental and social goals while supporting local economic development.

Furthermore, the benefits of reducing food waste extend to improved community health by increasing access to fresh, nutritious food through recovery and redistribution efforts. When restaurants and grocery stores donate surplus produce and prepared foods, low-income families gain access to healthier options that might otherwise be unaffordable. This improved nutrition can reduce healthcare costs and improve quality of life for vulnerable populations.

International examples demonstrate the effectiveness of comprehensive food waste solutions. France requires large retailers to donate unsold food rather than discarding it, resulting in significant waste reductions and increased food bank supplies. South Korea’s mandatory food waste recycling program has achieved impressive diversion rates while generating renewable energy and compost.

Ultimately, food waste reduction programs provide practical solutions to environmental, economic, and social challenges. By addressing waste at its source and redirecting surplus food to beneficial uses, these initiatives create multiple benefits that justify public investment and community support. The combination of environmental protection, cost savings, and social benefits makes food waste reduction a priority for sustainable community development.

Passage B

When Food Waste Reduction Programs Fall Short

By Robert Miller, Municipal Budget Director

Food waste reduction programs impose significant administrative and financial burdens on communities and businesses while delivering questionable environmental benefits and creating complex logistical challenges. These initiatives require extensive coordination, monitoring, and enforcement that strain municipal budgets and divert resources from more pressing community needs like education, public safety, and infrastructure maintenance.

The implementation costs of comprehensive food waste solutions often exceed their environmental and economic benefits. Communities must invest in specialized collection equipment, processing facilities, staff training, and ongoing monitoring systems to operate effective programs. Learning how to compost food waste requires facilities that demand substantial upfront capital investment and ongoing operational expenses that may not be recovered through compost sales or disposal fee savings. Many smaller communities lack the population density and waste volume necessary to make these investments economically viable.

Food safety concerns create significant liability and regulatory challenges for food waste reduction programs, particularly those involving food recovery and redistribution. Businesses face potential lawsuits if donated food causes illness, despite legal protections like the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. Complex regulations governing food handling, storage, and transportation create compliance burdens that discourage participation from restaurants and grocery stores. Many businesses prefer the certainty of waste disposal over the risks associated with food donation programs.

Efforts to reduce food waste are often difficult to implement and sustain due to administrative complexity. Coordinating among businesses, nonprofits, waste management providers, and government agencies demands significant resources and constant oversight. These stakeholders often operate on different schedules and have varying capabilities and needs, which complicates program logistics. As a result, the time and effort required for coordination and monitoring can pull valuable staff and funding away from other essential public services.

More importantly, many food waste reduction programs fail to achieve significant environmental improvements due to limited participation and scope. Voluntary programs often attract only the most environmentally conscious businesses and residents, missing the majority of waste generators who could make meaningful impacts. Mandatory programs face resistance and enforcement challenges that reduce their effectiveness. Despite claims about the environmental impact of food waste, small-scale local programs may produce negligible benefits compared to larger sources of greenhouse gas emissions like transportation and energy production.

Economic assumptions underlying food waste sustainability programs often prove overly optimistic in practice. Compost markets may not exist for program outputs, leaving communities with processing costs but no revenue streams. Commercial food waste solutions can increase costs for participating businesses through additional labor, storage, and transportation requirements. The claimed savings from reduced disposal fees may not materialize if waste volumes don’t decrease significantly or if alternative disposal methods prove more expensive than anticipated.

Rural and low-income communities face particular challenges implementing food waste reduction programs due to limited resources and infrastructure. These areas often lack the technical expertise, equipment, and facilities necessary for effective composting or food recovery operations. Transportation distances to food banks or processing facilities can make participation economically unfeasible. Programs designed for urban areas may not translate effectively to rural contexts with different waste generation patterns and collection systems.

Consumer behavior change proves difficult to achieve and maintain through education programs alone. While people may initially respond to awareness campaigns about the benefits of reducing food waste, long-term habit change requires ongoing reinforcement and support that programs cannot always provide. Cultural attitudes toward food, consumption patterns, and convenience preferences often override environmental concerns when making daily decisions about food purchases and disposal.

Additionally, food waste reduction programs can create unintended consequences that undermine their environmental goals. Increased food recovery activities may lead to more vehicle trips for transportation, potentially offsetting emission reductions from diverted waste. Composting operations can generate odors, attract pests, and create nuisance problems for neighboring communities. Complex sorting requirements may increase contamination in other recycling streams if residents become confused about proper disposal methods.

In conclusion, food waste reduction programs create more administrative and financial problems than environmental solutions for many communities. Rather than implementing costly and complex waste reduction initiatives, local governments should focus on core services that directly benefit residents. Market forces and individual responsibility can address food waste more effectively than bureaucratic programs that strain public resources without delivering proportional benefits.

Model Response on GED Essay Food Waste Topic

Both authors present strong arguments about food waste reduction programs, but Robert Miller makes a more convincing case by focusing on the financial and logistical barriers that Dr. Wagner overlooks.

Dr. Wagner effectively highlights the environmental impact of food waste and the benefits of reducing food waste for communities. Her point that the average American family wastes $1,500 worth of food annually illustrates the scale of the issue. She also promotes food waste sustainability by encouraging education and teaching people how to compost food waste. However, her argument focuses on ideal outcomes without considering the real difficulties of making these programs work.

In contrast, Miller takes a more practical view. He explains that efforts to reduce food waste often require costly investments in equipment, staff, and infrastructure. Those are resources many communities lack. While he agrees that the environmental impact of food waste is serious, he questions whether these programs truly deliver enough measurable results to justify their expense.

Miller also raises important concerns about food safety and liability. Even with legal protections, businesses may avoid donating food out of fear of lawsuits. This weakens the effectiveness of food recovery efforts. In addition, Miller points out the administrative complexity of coordinating between restaurants, food banks, waste services, and local governments. Dr. Wagner supports community-wide participation; however, she does not explain who will manage these programs or how smaller communities will handle the burden.

Although Miller could strengthen his position by suggesting more detailed alternatives, his argument remains realistic. He notes that changing consumer habits is difficult, and education alone may not lead to long-term behavior change.

Dr. Wagner’s international examples, such as France and South Korea, are informative, but Miller correctly argues that such models may not easily apply to the U.S.

In the end, Miller makes a stronger argument. While Dr. Wagner focuses on the potential benefits of reducing food waste, she doesn’t explain how communities can realistically make these programs work. On the other hand, Miller effectively discusses the practical challenges communities face when trying to reduce food waste in a cost-effective way.

(345 words)

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