A supermarket is reducing food waste by offering vegetable leaves for pets at no cost.
In the Reddit community r/mildlyinteresting, which boasts 22.3 million members, someone posted a picture of a sign with a picture of two gerbils in what appears to be the supermarket's produce section.
"Free vegetable leaves for pets in my local supermarket's produce section," the poster wrote above the image.
This is a positive initiative that can work to reduce food waste while also saving pet owners money.
In the United States, between 30% and 40% of all food is thrown away each year, according to Feeding America. That's around 119 billion pounds of food.
Food waste also contributes between 8% and 10% of all the planet-warming gases caused by human activities, per the World Economic Forum.
One reason is that food must be transported from one place to another, which increases the burning of fuels, which produces gases that warm the planet. Transportation accounts for 6% of the food industry's planet-warming gases, according to Our World in Data.
Another reason is that lots of land is required for the production of food, which means trees are cut down. Trees absorb the pollutants that heat the planet, so fewer trees basically means more toxic gases in the atmosphere.
Land use accounts for 24% of the gases released from overall food production (the majority of which comes from the livestock sector) per Our World in Data.
Giving away vegetables (that would otherwise get thrown out) as free pet food is a great way to reduce food waste and help pet owners save money.
"This is brilliant because all these things would have been garbage anyways," one commenter expressed.
"Shout out to New Seasons on the West Coast. My local store keeps the carrot tops behind one of the cash registers in front and all you have to do is ask for some," another added.
Another enthusiastically agreed, "Such a great idea, no waste, thinking of our little animals! Bravo!"
However, some Redditors brought up some interesting points.
One person wrote that "here in America, where I'm guessing she's from, [rules] basically [don't] allow stores to donate to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food banks, and the like. It's [not] that it's against the law, it's just that the higher ups don't allow that because then they can't profit from it.
Someone else countered by adding that "the Good Samaritan laws are in place to ensure anyone donating even out of date stuff can't be sued."
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