Americans are, statistically and generally, more wasteful than citizens in other countries, including bigger ones like China and India.
One of my uncles was working part time while studying in the USA for a few years, and he shared with me some of the culture shocks he experienced when he first lived in the “greatest country in the world”.
He once worked in Walmart and was assigned to roast or grill (I can't recall) chicken. At the end of the day, there were a lot of roasted chickens left - most of them were still fresh and warm. He didn't know how to handle the leftover food, so he asked the manager.
Guess how the manager replied.
“Throw them away. All of them.”
Naturally, my uncle - a Nigerian who was used to finishing every bit of food on his plate - didn't believe it. “Why? They're still in perfect condition!” he thought the manager was joking.
“We Americans don't deserve leftover stuff.”
Pic 1: Perfectly fine food that the manager considered trash.
Confused, my uncle wrapped all of the leftover food - which was definitely edible - and brought back home instead of throwing it into the garbage can. As it's impossible for him to finish the chicken wings, he distributed most of those to the homeless guys on LA streets.
The next day, he was sacked.
The manager checked the CCTV tape and found out that my uncle “stole” the store’s property. He was actually kind enough to not call the police and have my uncle arrested.
This isn't even a rare scenario. Most restaurants or canteens in the USA have always practiced this kind of wasteful conduct. It's really no wonder the USA consumes almost half of the world’s resources when their population is not nearly as big as China’s or India’s.