Gill Higgins, Origin Green Ambassador, London
Food waste is socially unacceptable, expensive and bad for the environment. Feeding the population consumes many natural resources including those fundamental to life on Earth –water and soil – and is a huge source of Greenhouse Gas emissions.
In the US, agriculture is responsible for 80% of all water consumed, according to the Water Footprint Calculator. It takes 1,000 years to generate 3cm of topsoil, but at the current rate of degradation due to unsustainable farming practices, the planet’s topsoil will be gone in 60 years. Agricultural production and expansion leading to deforestation accounts for 20-25% of Global GHG emissions.
According to the FAO one third of food produced for humans is wasted every year, with a dollar value of US$680bn in industrialised countries and US$310bn in developing countries. By comparison, in the EU and North America, consumers waste between 95-115kg annually per capita, versus 6-11kg in South and South-eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The FAO reports that in medium and high income countries, the majority of waste occurs at the end of the supply chain, with consumer behaviour playing a leading role. Significant quantities are wasted at retail due to “quality standards which over-emphasize appearance”.
Many governments are taking action to combat the problem, three of which are mentioned below. In France, food waste amounts to 10 million tons annually, at a cost of EU16bn, and emits 3% of the country’s GHG emissions. To address these issues, the Government have created laws and regulations to reduce waste, including a law which makes recycling mandatory for all businesses producing more than 10 tons of organic waste per annum. A 2016 law made France the first country to prohibit supermarkets throwing away edible food, requiring them instead to donate surplus food to charities and food banks. Any stores found in breach of the law can be fined EUR4,500for every infraction.
Food waste costs the Australian economy AUD20bn annually. The government have a target to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030, and have invested AUD1.2m to help achieve this target and support charities such as Food Bank Australia.
Denmark is a leader in the war against food waste, having reduced waste by 25% between 2012-2017, by evolving consumer behaviour and mentality through impactful initiatives such as food waste supermarkets. The government ran educational campaigns to raise consumer awareness around use-by and best-before labels, and make it legal to sell date-expired food. In 2016 the government launched a subsidy scheme which distributed US$750k to relevant projects. The Danish minister for food, Esben Lunde Larsen advocated to find a use for “wonky vegetables”, which would otherwise have been unwanted and wasted.
As consumers we should take a basil leaf out of Minister Larsen’s book, embrace wonky vegetables and their unwanted peers, and choose to use them rather than waste them.