Food Waste Facts
(http://www.unep.org/wed/quickfacts/) (07.10.2013)
(http://saynotofoodwaste.org/data/facts/)
The
impact of food waste is not just financial. Environmentally, food waste leads
to wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides; more fuel used
for transportation; and more rotting food, creating more methane one of the
most harmful greenhouse gases that contributes to climate change. Methane is 23
times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The vast amount of food going
to landfills makes a significant contribution to global warming.
- Roughly one third of the food
produced in the world for human consumption every year approximately 1.3
billion tonnes gets lost or wasted. This includes cereals, roots and
tubers, fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and sea food and milk products. - Every year, consumers in rich
countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net
food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes). - The amount of food lost or
wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual
cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010). - Food loss and waste also amount
to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labour
and capital and needlessly produce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing
to global warming and climate change. - In developing countries food
waste and losses occur mainly at early stages of the food value chain and
can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in
harvesting techniques as well as storage and cooling facilities. Thus, a
strengthening of the supply chain through the support farmers and
investments in infrastructure, transportation, as well as in an expansion
of the food and packaging industry could help to reduce the amount of
food loss and waste. - In medium- and high-income
countries food is wasted and lost mainly at later stages in the supply
chain. Differing from the situation in developing countries, the behavior
of consumers plays a huge part in industrialized countries. Moreover, the
study identified a lacking coordination between actors in the supply chain
as a contributing factor. Farmer-buyer agreements can be helpful to
increase the level of coordination. Additionally, raising awareness among
industries, retailers and consumers as well as finding beneficial use for
save food that is presently thrown away are useful measures to decrease
the amount of losses and waste. - In the United States 30% of all
food, worth US$48.3 billion (32.5 billion), is thrown away each year. It
is estimated that about half of the water used to produce this food also
goes to waste, since agriculture is the largest human use of water.
(Jones, 2004 cited in Lundqvist et al., 2008) - United Kingdom households waste
an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one third of
the 21.7 million tonnes purchased. This means that approximately 32% of
all food purchased per year is not eaten. Most of this (5.9 million tonnes
or 88%) is currently collected by local authorities. Most of the food
waste (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten
had it been better managed (WRAP, 2008; Knight and Davis, 2007). - In the USA, organic waste is
the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of
methane emissions.
More
Food Wastage Facts
1. 1/3 of all food in the world
is wasted. This 1.3 billion tones of food would be enough to
feed 4 times all the hungry in the world.
2. Almost 1
billion people are hungry worldwide. On the other hand around 1.5
billion people in the whole world are overweight and 400 million are
obese.
3. In USA between 40% and 50% of
food is thrown away. It is calculated that it stands for $165
billion (its ¼ of the US military budget).
4. An average American throw
out around 240 lbs of food per year.
5. An average American family
of 4 throws out food worth $2,275. 6. A 20% reduction
in food waste would be enough to feed 25 million Americans.
7. Food waste happens on
various levels: 20-25% on manufacturing, 15-20% on retail and 55-65%
on consumer.
8. Rotting food produce
methane, a gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which causes
climate change.
9. Growing food that is never
eaten emits 10% of rich countries gas emissions.
10. European countries have
three times more food than they actually need, while the US have four times
more food.
11. 40 to 60% of all fish are discarded because of the wrong size,
species or some other regulations.
12. Food waste has also other
costs:
- The 40-50% of wasted food takes with itself 25 % of all
fresh water use in the country. - 4% of total US oil consumption
- it cost $750 million to dispose of the food
13. You need to see food as a
final product of a complex chain of processes. By throwing it out, you throw
away water that was used to produce it. You throw away all the work that was
put into the production of corn for cows food. You throw away a piece of land
that was used to produce your favorite red tomato.
14. 8.3 millions hectares
required just to produce meat and dairy products wasted in UK and US. This
is seven times the area of the Amazon forest destroyed in one year. 15. In industrialized countries more
food waste is created on the consumers and retail level. In developing
countries more food waste is created on manufacturers level. 16. In
developed countries food waste is created on 3 main levels: Manufacturers
(20-25%), Distribution (15-20%) and Consumers (55-65%).
17. Every year the EU throws
away 90 million tons of food. If, put on trucks, it would span
the equator.
18. The only products that
have to display the best before date, are the ones that have no
assumed risk to health if consumed after the date expires.
19. There are laws that make
producers throw out potatoes because they are too
small, cucumbers too curvy and tomatoes that dont have the
right shade of red.
20. 1 of the 3 bites of food we eat, is thanks to the
pollination of honey bees.
21. If you cut in half
the percentage of food going into the landfill, you cut the methane
gas emissions 7.5%, from depleting the ozone layer.
22. Retailers define the so called qualitywe
live in, and we have to align ourselves accordingly. It is not based on
nutritional value, just economic.
23. Most households throw away things theydont need anymore.
And if they might need them later, they simply restock.
24. Food is not meant
to look good, its meant to taste good!
Facts
about the retail sector
1. Supermarkets are one
of the biggest companies in the world. In fact Walmart is the
biggest company in the world in terms of turnover. For the past couple of years
Carrefour (a French giant) has been growing constantly. 2. Supermarkets are the
intermediary between manufacterers and consumers. It is them who are
responsible for creating the supply to which the demand is
adjusted. 3. In developed countries more
than 80% of all grocery purchases are made in supermarkets.
Moreover, for instance in Spain 55% of all groceries stores are made
in the 5 biggest supermarkets (Carrefour, Mercadona, Opencor, Dinosol,
Eroski) 4. Very few supermarkets talk
about their food waste (e.g. Waitrose, UK). Sometimes they mention about
organic waste in general talking about paper waste.
5. Supermarkets tend to lock their dumpsters so that
people dont see what is inside. 6. Dumpster
divers are people that go from one supermarket to another looking for
free food in the garbage bins. They are part of thefreeganism movement. A lof
of them say that they would never be able to afford such good quality food. 7. Supermarkets often
close contracts with big food producers. It leads to enormous wastes at the
manufacturers level. If a banana producer have a contract with Walmart for 100
tones a year, he needs to plan his production for more in order to be
sure to fulfill the contract.
8. In many developed countries there are laws that
sets standards for fruits and vegetables, e.g. a potatoe cannot be too big
or too small. It leads to tones of waste.
9. Sale by dates – products have two types of dates. One
is for customers: use by or best by and the other is for
supermarkets: sale by date. To avoid selling expired products supermarkets
throw out food that is still edible.
Facts
about the gastronomy sector
1. An average restaurant
in America disposes of about 50 tonnes of food waste each
year, from which 76% is organic and can be recycled. 2. The British
restaurants dispose in total of 600,000 tonnes of food waste per
year 3. An average restaurant in Britain
disposes of about 22 tonnes of food waste per year, which means
each time a person eats, itcreates 0.5 kg (1.2 lbs) of waste