Food Waste Management – Why we should care.
Have you ever wondered how much food waste you are generating?
Should you really be worried about wasting food? You have already paid for it, right?
Also, there is always quite a bit available in the market, not like we are running out of it…how does it matter?
Well…it does matter!
In UK alone, 7 million tons of food & drink waste is thrown away every year from homes & kitchens; which is about 3.5 million “Double Decker” buses! A majority of this is good food that could have been eaten!
That’s roughly about £500 per home, per year… into the trash can!
Now consider every home in the community generating that much waste. Think about the amount of trash generated world over- that’s millions and millions of pounds of food waste created in the world, every year!
The worlds population is growing at a rapid pace & at the same time we’re collectively wasting or losing about 1/3 of the food generated in the world today! Not just that, even the environmental impact of food loss and waste is quite huge. The carbon footprint of food produced & wasted is estimated to be at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2. If food waste were a country it would rank as the third highest national emitter of greenhouse gases after China and US. Wasted food amounts to about 1.4 billion hectares, which is close to 30% of available agricultural land world over!
Still think you cannot make a difference? Think again!
Every small and conscious change you make to your habits of buying food at the supermarket or consuming it at home can make a huge impact to the overall food waste generated in the world. It is now more important than ever to implement these important lifestyle changes in the way you buy, use and throw your food, drinks & other trash. Changes like buying smaller sized packs, which are just enough for your family’s needs, ensuring that you don’t throw away food too early & refrigerate it or freeze it to preserve its shelf life so that you can consume it later, are small ways in which you can make a big change.
Food waste management is a collective effort that requires the entire community to come together and tackle the problem. It’s important we take these steps, before the entire planet is reduced to one giant landfill and before we run out of enough food to feed the ever-increasing world population.
Think before you buy…Think before you throw it away!