First, let’s look at where these ingredients came from. The most essential is roast beef. While cattle is raised in many places in the United States, slaughterhouses are the places where these cattle are turned into meat for human consumption. The largest amount of these slaughterhouses nearby are located in primarily in Iowa and eastern Nebraska. (WisconsinWatch.org) The wheat that is in the buns could have been grown anywhere in the Midwest, however the two largest producing states are Kansas and North Dakota. (AGMRC) California produces 71% of America’s lettuce, but Arizona produces a large quantity as well. (AGMRC) California also leads the country in Tomato production, but Florida is a close second. (FarmFlavor) Lastly, the cheese, naturally, was made here in Wisconsin. (WorldAtlas)
The environmental aspects of these ingredients is more wide ranging than one would first believe. The heaviest strain these ingredients put on the environment is water consumption. It takes lots of water to grow wheat, tomatoes, and lettuce, which depletes both surface and groundwater supplies. Fertilizers to help these crops grow also pollutes streams and rivers. Cattle, used both to make the beef and the cheese, also pollutes local water supplies by means of manure from runoff into nearby water sources.
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| Yellow: Cheese | Red: Tomato | Blue: Lettuce | Green: Wheat | Gray: Beef |
Beyond water pollution, these ingredients also have an effect on climate change as well. Beef and cheese in particular are quite damaging. This is because cattle produce a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane is not exactly toxic in this form, but it does have global consequences. Cattle are even more of contributor to climate change than automobiles. (Independent) Food crops like wheat, tomatoes, and lettuce have a much smaller impact on climate change and actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere thanks to photosynthesis.
The transporting of these ingredients also has an impact on the environment. All of these ingredients are produced in the United States and all of them can be bought at a supermarket. All of these ingredients were transported by refrigerated tractor trailers or railway cars. Both methods of transportation rely on fossil fuels. By far, the ingredients that traveled the furthest to get to Wisconsin were the tomatoes and lettuce from Florida, California, and Arizona, using the most fossil fuels in the process. The cheese, made here in Wisconsin, could be considered local, but it could have traveled across the state. This also does not include the trips from the farm, to processing, to shipping, and eventually to the store.
The waste produced from these products is more or less the same- plastic bags and wrappings they came in. Unfortunately, unlike other types of plastic bags, these are not reusable as they are usually dirty from the ingredients they were carrying. Of course there is also human waste, which where I live ends up in a septic tank and filtration system.
Sources
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