Dbread is too dry after a few days, yogurt is out of date for a week and raspberries are covered in white hair: throwing away food is annoying – but still everyday life. According to a study by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), every person throws an average of 79 kilograms of food into the trash every year. This equates to a billion meals a day.
According to the study, about 1.05 billion tons of food will be wasted in the world in 2022. It was unveiled on Wednesday to mark Zero Waste Day, which takes place on Saturday. According to this, about a fifth of the available food was thrown away. At 60 percent, private households are responsible for significantly more wasted food than restaurants and retailers.
“Food waste is a global tragedy,” UNEP Director Inger Andersen emphasized at a presentation in Nairobi. “Millions are hungry today while food is wasted around the world.” According to the report, 783 million people worldwide suffer from hunger. Food waste also affects the climate – and your wallet: in 2022, wasted food will be worth more than a trillion US dollars.
This is not a problem for “rich” countries
This is not a problem of “rich” countries. The difference between high-, middle-, and low-income states is only seven kilograms per capita per year. Rather, food waste is linked to the local climate: higher temperatures or heat waves make it harder to maintain a stable cold chain, the report says. In addition, more waste is generated in cities than in rural areas. This can be explained by the fact that food scraps are more often fed to animals in rural areas.
Food waste must be tackled both at the individual and systemic level. Governments, cities, municipalities and food companies of all sizes are also in demand. Countries should also continuously collect data on how much food is wasted. Japan and Great Britain have already managed to reduce food waste by 18 and 31 percent respectively. The global goal must be to halve the amount of food wasted by 2030.