The State of ‘Food Waste’

Today we often hear about “food waste,” in newspapers and on TV, as a world phenomenon characterized by incredibly impressive numbers. Food waste is defined as the loss of still edible food along the agri-food supply chain. We’re talking about tremendous amounts of waste that, even if initially might surprise us, can’t be truly grasped by our real perception because of their magnitude. Despite the fact that hunger is still the first global harm to health and among the primary causes of child mortality – the so-called “paradox of scarcity in abundance” (Bonardo D., 2012) – we don’t seem to understand the fact that Food Waste isn’t just a moral problem. Indeed, it’s also an environmental emergency that has a great impact on our Planet. It’s one of the primary causes of CO₂ and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as water, land and electricity consumption. Let’s talk numbers: “Each year ⅓ of still edible products gets wasted, that is 1.3 billion tons of still consumable food” (FAO, 2013). This is one of the most recurring statements we hear around the news. An enormous number. But can we truly imagine it? Do we truly understand how big the problem is? Let’s try to get these numbers closer to our perception. Each year, from the fields to the table, 50% of food products are wasted (Siwi, 2008). Let’s consider that solely in Italy, which is also a virtuous country from this point of view, where each person wastes 149 kg of food per year (Bcfn, 2012). Imagine throwing away 149 kg of good food all at once…impressive, isn’t it? But even if food waste is highly relevant from an ethical and moral point of view, environmentally it has a devastating and real impact. When speaking of “waste environmental impacts,” we normally think of just the resulting waste and its disposal. But if we look at the problem from the point of view of the entire life cycle of products, the LCA – Life Cycle Assessment, the reality changes: besides the emissions associated with waste disposal, we also have to keep in mind what’s created during the production of that wasted food.  In this case, we could, of course, mention an endless list of numbers, but it would do little to impact how we perceive the problem. In the past few years many methods have been developed that can help us study and grasp the environmental impact of Food Waste: among the many, one is to imagine Food Waste as a State, which is a method that, in my opinion, helps us understand the size and the vastness of the problem in a very clear way. Among the indicators used, we often find Carbon Footprint, which measures the greenhouse gas emissions generated by production processes. Now, if I tell you that food waste emits 3.3 Gt (gigatons) of emissions per year (FAO, 2003), you might think that’s a very big number, but your perception is still relative. However, if we consider Food Waste as a Nation, we find that it’s the third most polluting country in the World after China and the US (FAO, 2011).

The Blue Water Footprint, another indicator used to rank States, measures the consumption of water resources associated with agri-food productions – so it’s already related to Food Waste by itself. If we speak in numbers, the water footprint of Food Waste equals 250 km³ of water: three times Lake Geneva! (Hoekstra A., Mekonnen M., 2012). Same game as before: if it was a State, among the countries that use more water resources, how would it rank? Simply, first.

Last but not least, we find the indicator of Land Use, which measures the surface necessary to produce a particular product that has not been consumed. In 2007, Food Waste occupied 1.4 billion hectares of land, which is 28% of the world’s surface allocated to agriculture (FAO, 2013). If it were a State, how big would it be? It would be the biggest country in the World after the Russian Federation. 

As you may have understood thanks to these examples, food waste is a huge and far-reaching problem, that involves the ethical sphere, as well as the moral, environmental and social one. We urge Zero Waste solutions that enforce the concept of a Circular Economy, so that our production chains don’t produce waste and instead avoid it or, if present, value and use it as a secondary product. The road has been taken, but time is running out, and the State of Food Waste is getting bigger and stronger every day. By Elia Guida

Bibliography

• Barilla Center for  Food & Nutrition (2012), “Lo spreco alimentare- Cause, impatti e proposte”, BCFN, Parma.
• Bonardo D. (2012), “Wit Out- Fame e sprechi: il paradosso della scarsità nell’abbondanza”, Save the Children Italia Onlus, Roma.
• FAO (2011), “Global food losses and food waste – Extent, causes and prevention”, Rome.
• FAO (2013), “Food wastage footprint- Impacts on natural resources”,  progetto del Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, BIO-intelligence agency, France.
• Hoekstra A. Y.,  M. Mekonnen M. M. (2012), “The footprint of humanity”, PNAS- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol.109, Febbraio,  University of Twente, Olanda.
• Lundqvist  J., C. de Fraiture,  D. Molden (2008), “Saving Water: From Field to Fork – Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain”, SIWI Policy Brief, SIWI, Stoccolma