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Food waste: the amount discarded totals 900 million tons.
Each year, more than 900 million tons of food are discarded, according to a global report.
The United Nations Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index revealed that 17% of food available to consumers in stores, homes, and restaurants goes straight to the trash.
Around 60% of this waste occurs at home.
The lockdown appears to have had a surprising impact, at least in the UK, by reducing household food waste.
The sustainability charity Wrap, the UN partner organization for this report, states that people have been planning their shopping and meals more carefully.
And in an effort to capitalize on this, renowned chefs have been recruited to inspire less wasteful cooking habits.
“23 million food trucks”
The report highlights a global issue that is “much larger than previously estimated,” Richard Swannell from Wrap told BBC News.
“The 923 million tons of food wasted every year would fill 23 million 40-ton trucks. From end to end, that’s enough to circle the Earth seven times.”
It’s a topic that was previously considered almost exclusive to wealthier countries, where consumers simply buy more than they can eat, but this research found “substantial” food waste “everywhere.”
There are gaps in the findings that could reveal how the scale of the issue varies across low- and high-income countries. For example, the report couldn’t distinguish between “involuntary” and “voluntary” waste.
“We haven’t explored this in depth, but in low-income countries, the cold chain is not fully secured due to lack of access to energy,” Martina Otto from UNEP told BBC News.
Data to distinguish between edible food waste and non-edible parts like bones and peels was only available for high-income countries. Lower-income countries, Ms. Otto noted, are likely wasting much less edible food.
But the bottom line, she said, was that the world “is simply wasting all the resources used to make that food.”
Ahead of major global climate and biodiversity summits later this year, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen is pushing for countries to commit to combating food waste by halving it by 2030.
“If we are serious about fighting climate change, nature loss and biodiversity, and pollution and waste, businesses, governments, and citizens around the world must do their part to reduce food waste,” she said.
Richard Swannell noted, “Wasted food is responsible for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions, so if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet.”
Tips to reduce food waste:
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Plan your portions and buy the right amount: a cup should contain the right amount of uncooked rice for four adults, and you can measure a single portion of spaghetti with a 1-pence or 1-euro coin;
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Cool your fridge: the average fridge temperature in the UK is nearly 7°C. It should be under 5°C;
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Understand date labels: a "use by" date refers to food safety. If the use-by date has passed, don’t eat or serve it, even if it looks and smells fine. If something is nearing its use-by date, you can freeze it. A "best before" date is about quality.
In the UK, the average household could save £700 a year, according to Wrap's research, by buying only the food they actually eat.
The lockdown effect When food waste is voluntary, the Covid-19 lockdown seems to have had the surprising effect of accurately revealing how to remedy it.
According to Wrap research, careful planning, storage, and batch cooking during lockdown reduced food waste levels reported by people by 22% compared to 2019.
“Being confined in our homes has led to an increase in behaviors like batch cooking and meal planning,” the charity said. “But the latest insights suggest that food waste levels are likely to rise again as we come out of lockdown.”
To prevent this, renowned cooks and chefs have lent their names and social media profiles to the anti-food-waste campaign.
British TV chef Nadiya Hussain is working with Wrap and offers leftover tips and recipes via Instagram. And Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura, the chef-owner of Modena’s three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana, has been named UNEP goodwill ambassador "in the fight against food waste and loss."
During the lockdown in Italy, his family produced an online cooking show called Kitchen Quarantine, encouraging people to "see the invisible potential" in every ingredient.
While millions of tons of food were thrown away, an estimated 690 million people were affected by hunger in 2019. That number is expected to rise sharply due to the pandemic.
Ms. Andersen noted that addressing waste "would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, slow the destruction of nature through land conversion and pollution, improve food availability, thus reducing hunger, and save money during a global recession."
