What does 'discarded' mean here? The end user discards them but that does not require that they are dumped. They can be crushed, composted, used as feedstock for some other process, etc.
"This equates to each household in NYC wasting an average of 8.4 pounds of food per week." [1]
Each household could feed a flock of 7 chickens with that household waste.
[0] https://www.rts.com/blog/nyc-waste-statistics-what-you-need-...