A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council has found that Americans throw away nearly half of their food each year with the waste worth approximately $165 billion annually - equivalent the size of Ukraine's GDP.

In the report, the NRDC estimates that Americans squander 40 percent of the food supply every year, and the average American family of four ends up throwing away an equivalent of up to $2,275 annually in food.

Collectively, the Council says it is equivalent to throwing out $165 billion each year.

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By reducing food waste by 15 percent, it would not only ease the load on landfills but also "feed more than 25 million Americans every year at a time when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables."

The report also said:

The average American consumer wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Southeast Asia, up from 50 percent from Americans in the 1970s.

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Dana Gunders, author of the NRDC report, said the "complexity of the issue cannot be ignored":

At the heart are two basic realities that must be acknowledged upfront. The first is that food represents a small portion of many Americans' budgets, making the financial cost of wasting food too low to outweigh the convenience of it. Second, there is the plain economic truth that the more food consumers waste, the more those in the food industry are able to sell.

To remedy efficiency losses in the US food system, the study says "much can be learned from work that is already under way in Europe", where research and legislation has helped to raise public awareness on food wastage.

Citing the success of an extensive UK public awareness campaign, Love Food Hate Waste, the report said "gains can be made quickly."

"In just five years, avoidable household food waste in the United Kingdom has been reduced 18 percent," said the report.

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