HBO’s Last Week Tonight is famous for taking on important issues and breaking them down using a combination of humour and anger. The show’s recent segment on food waste was no different.
It aired on Sunday (July 19) after the Natural Resources Defence Council released a report on the amount of food wasted in America. The report places the dollar value at $165 billion. The number is alarming in light of the fact that 50 million people in America aren’t able to eat on a regular basis.
Food waste not only has an economic impact, it is negatively affecting the environment as well. Host John Oliver pointed out the absurdity of wasting valuable resources, like water in California, on food only for those products to wind up in landfills. Landfills present their own host of problems; the large amounts of methane they produce among them.
Oliver said that throwing away food is basically “throwing a trash blanket over a flatulant food man and Dutch-ovening the entire planet.”
$165 billion of food waste is enough waste to fill 730 stadiums.
Oliver put this in even sharper perspective: “Food waste is like the band Rascall Flatts. It can fill a surprising number of stadiums even though most people consider it complete garbage.”
Oliver implored his viewers to do something about the economic and environmental effect food waste is having on the planet (most of his viewers, anyway):
‘And if you’re thinking, “But hold on, John, what if I’m an asshole who couldn’t give a shit about America’s hungry families or the long-term viability of life on earth?”’
‘Well, first let me say, “Mr Trump! Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this show tonight. It’s lovely to have you with us.’
The show has taken shots at Trump in the past, with Trump being called a “total idiot” and “an upside down piece of candy corn in a wig made of used medical gauze.”
Watch the clip below.
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