Households around the world will throw away one billion meals a day by 2022, in what the United Nations on Wednesday called a “global disaster” of food waste.
Households and businesses lost more than $1 trillion in food during the famine that left nearly 800 million people hungry, according to the UN Food Waste Index. It says that more than one billion tons of food – almost a fifth of all products on the market – will be lost in 2022, much of it from households.
“Food waste is a global disaster. “Millions of people will go hungry today as food is wasted around the world,” Inger Andersen, director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said in a statement.
Such waste is not only a moral failure but also an “environmental failure,” the report says. Food waste produces five times more global warming than the aviation sector and requires the conversion of large tracts of land to growing non-edible crops.
This report, jointly with the non-profit WRAP, is only the second on global food waste compiled by the UN and provides the most detailed information to date. As data collection improves, the true nature of the problem has become clearer, says UNEP’s Clementine O’Connor.
“The more you look for food waste, the more you find,” he told AFP. Billions of meals were wasted
The report says that the “billion meals” figure is a “reserved estimate” and “the actual amount may be higher.”
“For me it’s just amazing,” WRAP’s Richard Swannell told AFP. “We can give all the people who are currently hungry in the world – about 800 million people – one meal a day just from the food that is lost every year. »
He said that bringing together producers and sellers helped reduce waste and get food to those who need it, and that more such things are needed.
Food services such as restaurants, hotels and restaurants are responsible for 28 percent of food waste in 2022, while retail businesses such as butchers and papercutters Green lost 12%. But the worst affected are households, which account for 60%, or about 631 million tons.
Swannell said this happens a lot because people buy more food than they need, but watch portion sizes and don’t eat leftovers. Another problem is dry days, he said, as whole crops are thrown away because people mistakenly think their food is gone.
Much of that food, especially in developing countries, is not wasted unnecessarily, but is lost in transit or spoiled due to lack of refrigeration, reports said the body. Contrary to popular belief, food waste is not only a problem of “rich countries” and can be found all over the world, the report says.
Warmer countries also generate more waste, perhaps due to the higher consumption of fresh food with a larger proportion of non-edible parts. “Destructive Effects”
Companies also underestimate the cost of food waste in their landfills because it is cheaper to throw unused materials into landfills.
“It’s quick and easy to dispose of now because the tax exemption is zero or very low,” O’Connor said. Food waste has had a “disastrous effect” on people and the planet, according to the report.
The conversion of ecosystems for agricultural purposes is the biggest cause of habitat loss, but food waste takes up nearly 30% of global farmland, the report said. “If we can reduce food waste throughout the delivery process, we can … reduce the need to produce a growing crop that is not used,” Swannell said. .
It is also a major driver of climate change, causing up to 10% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. “If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet behind the United States and China,” Swannell said.
But people don’t think about it, he said, despite the opportunity to “reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and save money, just by using the food we’ve already bought.”
