Didn’t fancy finishing that plate of pasta or the crusts from your sandwich? Threw out that broccoli you bought in a moment of health consciousness but forgot about and it has now turned an off-putting shade of white? While these may be small quantities of waste, these little contributions to the rubbish dump amount to approximately one ton of food waste per Irish household every year. According to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, only a fifth of the food we throw away is really inedible, like bones and banana skins. The rest are leftovers, trimmings and perishables.
By reducing the food we throw away at home, we can all help reduce food waste. However, the biggest contribution to food waste is not only by consumers, but from the very beginning of the food chain to the end. Farmers may cultivate crops which are never harvested, due to damage or drop in demand. Supermarkets and retailers bin or reject enormous quantities of expired or ‘ugly’ foods. Restaurants and cafes also produce waste from throwing away customers’ leftovers or surplus perishables. This waste all along the food chain amounts to approximately one million tonnes of edible food being wasted every year in Ireland. But Ireland is not alone in this; this figure expands to 1.3 billion tonnes globally!
Environmental consequences
Food waste may turn out to be worse for the environment than you think. Agriculture is one of the most polluting industries, and Ireland is one of the only countries in the world to produce more emissions from agriculture than from any other sector. Agriculture produces a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland, mostly from methane (cow farts) and nitrous oxide (animal poo), both of which are more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Agriculture is generally extremely resource-intensive: over 300 million barrels of oil and 550 trillion litres of water are used to produce the food wasted globally every year. Considering rising sea levels, soil erosion and the massive drought affecting Europe during the heatwave this summer, is it really sustainable to waste all this food?
Food poverty
Reducing waste is a cost-free method of mitigating climate change. Furthermore, it can actually help you save money. Each household throws away around €400 – €1000 of food per year, amounting to €700 million in Ireland annually. Many families in Ireland do not have enough money to feed themselves: 10% of Irish people and more than 1 billion people globally experience food poverty. Doesn’t it seem crazy to waste food when there are people going hungry?
Solutions
Many supermarkets, such as Lidl UK, have started stocking damaged or misshapen fruit and veg at discount prices in order to reduce the amount of food thrown away. Lidl Ireland, in contrast to its British counterpart, doesn’t wish to start stocking ‘misshapen’ fruit and veg, as they already give these to charity. Lidl Ireland is part of a bigger charity project called Food Cloud, joined by Aldi and Tesco.
Food Cloud is a non-profit app which enables supermarkets, retailers and other food processors to donate food to local charities. Organisations such as Food Cloud not only feed the hungry but also save retailers money, but these charities receive only 10% of all food going to waste.
The government has responded by creating a Food Waste Charter, which was signed last year by some of Ireland’s biggest food retailers. This charter aims to facilitate food waste reporting in order to reduce waste more efficiently. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also launched its ‘Stop Food Waste’ campaign and website, with information about how to mitigate food waste. Educating individuals is also key, with events like the Zero Waste Festival, an inclusive day out for all ages, educating the Irish public about how to better utilise food that would be otherwise wasted, in an interactive way. Many other initiatives have been set up by the National Waste Prevention Programme (NWPP), such as Greenbusiness.ie, the online Tool for Resource Efficiency (TREE) and the SMILE Resource exchange.
Despite these projects, enormous quantities of edible food are wasted every year, and in order to make a difference we must all start wasting less. Here are three simple steps to help combat food waste:
- Plan your weekly shop to avoid buying foods that will expire before you can use them.
- Listen to grandma and finish your plate instead of snacking later…
- If you really can’t finish your plate, store the leftovers in a container, they will make a great lunch/dinner for tomorrow! Or revamp them — could they work in a pasta sauce, an omelette, or a sandwich?
