STATISTICS + FACTS
Whether you're vegetarian, paleo, vegan - or you go for the gusto and eat everything - the truth is that an astounding amount of food worldwide goes to waste. Though food waste is often brought up around holidays, as they are particularly wasteful, it's not only then that we waste massive quantities of food.
We're wasteful every single day of the year.
THE FACTS: HOW MUCH FOOD IS WASTED WORLDWIDE
Just how much food do we waste? Here's some food for thought:
The United States is the global leader in food waste, with Americans discarding nearly 40 million tons of food every year. That's 80 billion pounds of food and equates to more than $161 billion pounds of waste per person and 30-40 % of the food supply. Most of these foods are sent to landfills.
WHY DO WE WASTE SO MUCH FOOD?
With millions of people worldwide - including children - suffering from food insecurity, why do we waste so much of our food abundance?
Getting to the bottom of what causes food waste is a challenge that traverses the complexity of socioeconomic disparities, and ingrained beliefs layered with our behaviors and habits.
Food spoilage is one of the biggest reason people throw food. More than 80% of the population discard perfectly good and consumable food simply because, for one they misunderstand expiration labels.
Compared to the rest of the world, food in the UAE is plentiful and less costly, and often this contributes to a general sentiment of not appreciating or valuing it the way we should.
People are often impulsive in their food purchases, unrealistically assessing how much food is required, and as a result buying more food than they need.
Our take-out society doesn't use food in its entirety the way our ancestors used to. We underutilize leftovers and toss food scraps that can still be used or composted.
The UN Sustainable Development Goal is to reduce food loss and waste by half by the year 2030, and by taking this action they are able to help feed the hungry, save money for families and businesses and protect the environment.
WASTING FOOD HAS ENVIRONMENTAL REPERCUSSIONS ...
While the food waste movement is gaining momentum, it needs to pick up speed to help tackle one of the globe's most pressing problems: climate change.
Wasting food has irreversible environmental consequences: it wastes the water and energy it took to produce it, and generates greenhouse gases - 7% of the world's emissions - like methane, carbon dioxide and chlorofluocarbons, which contributes to global warming. Food that sits decaying in landfills also produces nitrogen pollution, which causes algae blooms and dead zones. According to the World Wildlife Federation, the production of wasted food in the United States is equivalent to the greenhouse emissions of 37 million cars.
The average family of four throws out $1,456 a year in produce
Confronting Waste and Solving the problem at Home:
So how do we tackle food waste? The challenge is to waste less
1) Don't misinterpret labels on food that's perfectly good to eat.
2) Learn how to compost and keep food scraps out of landfills, and the amount of greenhouse gases from rising.
3) Freeze food that can't be eaten immediately, but could be consumed at a later date.
4) Share the wealth. Donate food to food pantries or deliver to people who need it.
5) Plan meals and make deliberate shopping lists.
6) Embrace imperfect produce.
In Jumeirah College we are innovating new ways to use food waste as ingredients for other products, setting up food donation plans, and implementing composting programs.
Food statistics may seem overwhelming, but we can start to reduce waste in our community.Similarly to how we can prevent food waste at home, it's about making sure too much food isn't purchased, redirection (or donation) of unused food that would otherwise be wasted, and setting up composting programs for food scraps that would end up in landfills.
It's about everyone doing their part, from individuals to families thus large corporations - taking responsibility and making small changes to create meaningful sustainable changes for the planet.
