Here is a small fact sheet regarding waste which I reckon many of us don’t know about (and neither did I before writing this post). While many of the facts pertain to the U.S., we can take them as a directional guide for other parts of the world:

As you can see, there is a huge amount of waste in our world today. This wastage doesn’t just apply to food. It also applies to plastic, paper, water, fuel, material items, and even waste itself (recyclable waste not being recycled).

Why Wasting Is Bad

While it’s obvious wasting is very bad, here are four key reasons:

Why We Are Wasteful

If wasting is bad, then why is there such a culture of waste today?

Firstly, materialism and consumerism. Materialism is the preoccupation with material goods, while consumerism is the practice of purchasing more and more goods. Both are prevalent in our society today, which is engulfed with the notions of “More and more” and “The newer, the better”.

Because of that, we would buy things without considering if we need them, which results in wastage because we never have a need for the things we purchase.
(https://personalexcellence.co/blog/how-to-prevent-waste/)