The Carbon Footprint of a Strawberry

The Carbon Footprint of a Strawberry

Have you ever thought about what the carbon footprint of a strawberry is? Ever considered how much of an impact a strawberry has on climate change? Probably not. I certainly hadn’t.

Let’s carbonalyze a strawberry.

Okay, I made that word up. But it works. Carbon + analyze. I like it. I’m keeping it.

Let’s say you live in New York. Big city…lots of people, meaning lots of food and restaurants.

Let’s say you just bought a strawberry from the supermarket.

Well, to get that strawberry to you, that strawberry produced a carbon footprint that will lead to a very very slight increase in climate change. 

From California to New York

First of all, that strawberry was probably grown in California, as it’s the top strawberry producer in the United States. In California, a farmer used a fossil fuel-powered machine and emitted, or burned carbon when he went out with a tractor to plow the field, burned more carbon with another machine to sow the seeds, and then he had to keep it growing with lots of water. 

Weeks later, the strawberries need to be harvested by again burning carbon: it’s driven and transported from the fields to a packaging center. 

The strawberry is then processed in a packaging center that uses electricity, which is still currently mostly generated by burning fossil fuels (aka burning carbon) to package the strawberry in plastic, which is carbon-based, and produces it’s own carbon footprint when it’s manufactured. 

Next, the strawberry gets put on a truck and carried it across the United States, all the while burning carbon, to a distribution center which is burning carbon for its electricity.

Phew. We made it to the Big Strawberry…er…Apple. New York!

From the distribution center, smaller trucks carry the strawberry from the distribution center to the supermarket where you can buy it…But guess what? That supermarket is burning carbon to light the building, keep the building cool, and power its equipment. 

Next, you probably burn carbon by driving a car or riding some form of transportation to GET to the store, then burn carbon again when you bring it home.

Home sweet carbon-producing home…

Now, you store it in your fridge, which you’re most likely powering by…You guessed it! Burning carbon.

Next, let’s just say you forget that pack of strawberries after a couple of weeks of keeping it and burning carbon to store it at the back of your refrigerator and it goes bad: you throw it away. 

Now it gets loaded onto a garbage truck and transported again…Burning carbon (I’m getting sick of typing it and you’re probably getting sick of reading it).

Carbon, carbon, carbon…methane!

Finally, it arrives at a landfill, where it rots and creates methane, which warms the planet 86 times MORE than CO2.

That…Is a LOT of greenhouse gas emissions for just a strawberry.

From a carbon emission standpoint, it would’ve been far better for the planet if the farmer just dumped the strawberries into a ditch after growing them than it was to sell them.

Why is this important?

So who cares? We make a little bit of carbon to make a strawberry. What’s the big deal?

This is a big deal because it’s not just strawberries that produce a carbon footprint along the way. It’s literally every single product that you find in every single supermarket in every single country in the world creating carbon footprints that all add up to a massive industry of carbon production.

In this example, we only talked about bringing things across one country, but for many products, they get shipped by refrigerated plane or ship across an ocean as well, adding extra layers of carbon output. The smartest thing we can do for the environment is to produce food as close as we can to where we consume it. Buy food locally, or even start growing your own foods at home! If everyone were to start their own backyard or rooftop garden we could save a huge amount of carbon emissions.

Food Waste in America

Individually, we see food waste as just being a bit of food that we’re throwing away and as a slight inconvenience, but here in the U.S., we throw away on average 30-40% of our food, which is absolutely ridiculous! Nearly half (and more than half, in some states), of the food we produce gets transported and stored around the country producing carbon all the way and then just gets thrown away and rots to produce methane. Food waste, by some estimates, is the 3rd largest producer of greenhouse gases. It’s basically one big climate warming factory. 

Is there good news? What can I do to help?

Thankfully, this is a problem that doesn’t require any special technology or government laws to solve! This is something that WE can solve, starting right now! This is an area we can have an impact immediately!

Here are some things you can start doing right now to start reducing your food waste and environmental impact:

1. Shop smart: Don’t buy things you don’t need. Only buy what you’re 100% sure you can finish!
2. Buy as much locally sourced food as you can: It’s cheaper, usually has way less packaging and much less of a transportation-based carbon footprint.
3. Keep mental notes of what you’re throwing away (or real notes!): Remember what you’re throwing away on a regular basis, so you can stop buying it on future supermarket visits.
4. Eat from oldest to newest: Eat your left-overs! Don’t let it sit! Prioritize eating the oldest things in the fridge first.
5. Learn how to store food properly: Properly stored foods last muuuuuch longer. A quick google search will save you here!
6. Repurpose everything: Veggie scraps into veggie stock, aging fruits into jams, stale bread into bread puddings or croutons…There are so many ways that leftovers can be eaten! Find a good book on making use of kitchen scraps into delicious dishes, like this one, and start reducing your kitchen waste while saving money ASAP!

This list is just a start! There are way more things you can do to reduce your environmental impact from your kitchen! Get started today, and have an impact RIGHT NOW. 

What are your zero-waste tips from the kitchen?

Let me know down in the comments below! What do you do to keep your veggies lasting longer? How do you remind yourself what to eat first? What’s your favorite way to buy locally-sourced foods? 

Photo Credits:

Strawberry in Hand Photo by Marc Fulgar on Unsplash