If you bought 10 bags of shopping at the market, how would you feel about throwing 3 to 5 of those bags directly into the trash? It is estimated that 30-50% of all food purchased globally goes to waste. Every item of food we throw away has a global consequence; land, water and energy resources all suffer as a consequence of wasting food. Yearly, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted, which amounts to a cost of 750 billion dollars, 6 times the amount spent on global aid.
Ever an ever increasing crisis, this global issue effects both developed and developing countries. A report by the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), cited that in the West, the overwhelming amount of food waste is due to a combination of unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one-free deals and the Western consumer demand for cosmetically picture-perfect food. In the case of the developing world, agricultural techniques and logistics are the main cause. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) 95% of food waste in developing countries is due to unintentional losses at early stages of the food supply chain, caused by financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting methods; furthermore storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions; infrastructure; packaging and marketing systems add to the problem
The United Nations Environment Program, ‘Think. Eat. Save’ challenges everyone to make informed decisions when buying and consuming food. This includes, for example, selecting food with a lower environmental impact, such as organic foods or buying locally. Instead of throwing away foods, we should re-use them or preserve them and thus prevent avoidable wastage or loss. With far-reaching consequences, the issue of food waste is an issue of our time, which will take us all to solve.
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