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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

$25 Trashed per Month in Family Food Wasted

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013   

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Imagine tossing about $25 into the trash can every month. It happens in Maryland and across the nation as Americans throw out about 20 pounds of food every 30 days. It goes bad, or there are too many leftovers.

Strategies exist to reduce waste, said Jon Foley, director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, such as paying closer attention to "sell-by" dates. Menu planning aligned with portions can help, too, he said, along with a change in shopping habits.

"Try to shop a bit more frequently and maybe less volume," he said. "For example, having a small market near your house for things that are more perishable, like milk and eggs and meat and that kind of thing."

The average family discards between $300 and $500 worth of food per year, he said, with the biggest losses in meat and seafood.

Wasting food isn't just a household pocketbook issue. Foley said there's an international component to consider. Food production takes resources, most notably water. Hunger is a life-and-death issue for some in America, and more commonly, in other countries.

"We've spent billions and billions of dollars trying to get crops to grow faster, to improve yields - and globally, crop production has only increased about 20 percent in the last 20 years, despite all those efforts," Foley said. "And here's 40 percent of the world's food, that is sitting around rotting."

Not all waste is the consumer's fault," he said. "Food is also lost in production, shipping, restaurants and markets.

More information on food waste is online at nrdc.org and worldhunger.org.


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