Food waste is the loos of food – both cooked and raw – during the production, manufacturing distribution, retailing or consummation process in industries and households.
Waste can be considered is a large issue nowadays, and it is becoming more and more significant. Indeed, between 33% and 50% of the food produced is not eaten, for a value of 1 trillion USD.
Ironically, 1/9 people around the world are starving or malnourished, and they constitute about 800 million of the people on Earth. If only ¼ of all the food waste that comes from the USA and Europe was put together, this could sufficiently feed all these poor people. Furthermore, what is most mind-blowing is that out of those 800 million, there are 40 million starving people in the United States and more than 8 million poor people in the UK. However, food waste itself is an issue, but exporting it would also be a problem. If food produced in countries such as the US was exported to developing nations such as in Africa or Asia, this would cause the food prices to go up, as the exportation cost would be high and larger production would mean worse degradation of natural habitats.
PROBLEM:
The environmental impact of food waste is enormous and extremely negative. The concentration of food waste every year could form a territory larger than China and composes 25% of total water consumption. Moreover, food production requires the use of resources like land, and many areas have been deforested for food that was never consumed. Indeed, in order to have places to grow crops and materials, trees are cut down but this causes the extinction of species and the displacement of indigenous populations. 750,000 square kilometers of the Amazon river have been destroyed since 1978 for cattle ranching, agriculture (growth of crops such as rice, corn, and sugar cane), logging (the legal or illegal use of wood from trees) among other minor reasons. Not only the waste of resources but also unused food itself ends up in landfills and decomposes, creating methane. This substance goes in the air that we breathe and makes carbon dioxide 23 times deadlier. In fact, food waste causes almost as much greenhouse gases as the USA, the 2nd largest producer of these materials. Its loss is four times as much as annual pollution from aviation, and similar to the emissions of road transport. The emissions come from different factors: agriculture emissions (resources used by livestock, farm-energy use, fertilizers that are considered as wasted when the food is not used).
Actually, although we may believe that a lot of food is wasted before consummation, more than 50% of substances are lost in our homes, while less than 2% is wasted in retail stores (for example rotten food in supermarkets). On average, people in the UK waste 22% of what they buy, which corresponds to £700 every year. This means that all individuals in developed countries are responsible for food waste, so this is an issue that needs to be solved with collective collaboration.
The problem of food waste is also present in the European Union, where it is estimated that each person wastes 179kg of food every year. This means that, in total, 89 million tons of food are lost yearly.
SOLUTIONS
According to the “World Resources Institute”, there are 10 main ways to solve food loss and waste. Storage methods should be ameliorated, especially for farmers of small companies, by becoming simpler and cheaper while preventing decay, pests and transport damage. Indeed, if substances are stocked well, they can be conserved for a long time, avoiding food loss, and if the packaging is resistant, they will not be squashed or spoiled during transport.
Another solution regarding farming is to redistribute food. Often, farmers or grocers have too much food and cannot sell it. Since no ones consumes it, it ends up being thrown away without benefitting any one. Therefore, food could be redistributed through existing food banks or the creation of new ones – an example of food bank is the Australian organization SecondBite, which offers fresh food to people in different communities who cannot afford quality nourishment. Actually, this solutions could also help reducing poverty, so it has various positive effects.
Moreover, a frequent issue is that date labels on food often indicate that something should be consumed “best-before” or should be “used by” a specific date, while the food is still intact at the expiration of the day written on the wrapping. According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme, in the UK, 1/5 of food was thrown out by consumers because it was wrongly seen as out of date. Thus, if only necessary date labels were placed on food packaging, customers might be less tempted to throw food away when it is still fresh.
Another possible solution to food loss is reducing food portion sizes in restaurants and cafeterias, where people might leave some food on their place because they are full. This option is especially feasible in cafeterias, where people could go and refill their plate for free if they are still hungry. This system was applied at the Grand Valley State University in Michigan, where it turned out that, over the course of a year, around 28,000 pounds less of food were wasted.
Furthermore, organizing campaigns to raise awareness of food loss will enable people to realize how much waste each of us produces. These campaigns should show clearly the problems relative to this issue, and propose solutions that each individual could do at home in order to ameliorate the situation.
Also, food waste should be accurately measured in each country to understand how much junk is produced by every nation. Based on the results of these measurements, international limits for the quantity of food waste created should be established to stop communities from waste too much food, just like a “food loss and waste protocol”.
Also, local and global societies could set targets for food waste. E.g. Reducing food loos by 40% by 2030. This will motivate Councils and countries to achieve this goal, as long as it is realistic and time-bound.
A further feasible solution for food waste could be creating organizations and entities that regulate food production in entities. In fact, not only is it important to consume the food, but also to avoid producing superfluous amounts of food during the factory processes to limit the loss of substances.
Lastly, various businesses,organizations and governments work to eliminate food waste. This process should be facilitated and accelerated by supporting positive initiatives and encouraging collaborations between associations.
There are various solutions to food waste, not only the ones identified here but many others that we can think of. However, it is important to think of reducing food waste on the short term, but also on the long term, as it is expected that 60% more resources will be needed to feed people in 2050 but the amount of food waste around the world is continuously increasing.
LINK TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
We can link the issue of food waste to two of the Sustainable Development Goals: No Poverty, and Zero Hunger. In fact, if the excessive food produced in developed countries was used to feed poorer people, this could eliminate hunger. Moreover, three aspects of absolute poverty are food, clothes and shelter. Therefore, eradicating hunger could contribute to the depletion of poverty.
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