Eliminating the millions of tonnes of food thrown away annually in the US and UK could lift more than 1 billion people out of hunger worldwide, experts say.
Government officials, food experts and industry representatives brought together by the Food Ethics Council argue that excessive consumption of food in rich countries inflates prices in the developing world. Buying food, which is then often wasted, reduces overall supply and pushes up the price, making grain less affordable for poor and undernourished people in other parts of the world.
Food waste also costs consumers £10.2 billion (US$16.8 billion) a year and when production, transportation and storage are factored in, it is responsible for 5 percent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Tristram Stuart, author of a new book on food waste and a contributor to a special food waste issue of the Food Ethics Council’s magazine, said: “There are nearly a billion malnourished people in the world, but all of them could be lifted out of hunger with less than a quarter of the food wasted in Europe and North America. In a globalized food system, where we are all buying food in the same international marketplace, that means we’re taking food out of the mouths of the poor.”
Food waste in Britain, which totals 6.7 million tonnes a year, costs every household between £250 and £400 a year, figures that are likely to be updated this autumn when the government’s waste agency, Wrap, publishes new statistics. Producing and distributing edible food that goes uneaten and into waste also accounts for 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
But Tom MacMillan, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, said that reducing food waste alone would not be enough to alleviate hunger, because efficiency gains in natural resources were routinely cancelled out by growth in consumption.
“Food waste is harmful and unfair, and it is essential to stop food going into landfill. But the irony is that consumption growth and persistent inequalities look set to undo the good that cutting food waste does in reducing our overall use of natural resources and improving food security,” he said.
MacMillan said the land and resources freed by cutting food waste would probably be put to use producing and consuming other things, such as more resource-intensive and expensive foods, bio-energy or textile crops.
“Now is the moment all parties should be searching out ways to define prosperity that get away from runaway consumption. Until they succeed, chucking out less food won’t make our lifestyles more sustainable,” he said.
In addition to cutting down on waste, experts suggested food waste that does end up in the trash could be dealt with in more environmentally friendly ways.
Paul Bettison, who chairs the UK’s Local Government Association environment board, wrote: “Leftovers are being turned into fertilizer, or gas to generate electricity. In some areas, in-vessel composting and anaerobic digestion are playing a key role in cutting council spending on landfill tax and reducing methane emissions.”
But there were obstacles to generating energy and producing compost from food waste, he said.
“Lack of infrastructure is holding back the drive to make getting rid of food waste cheaper and greener. Councils do not want to collect leftovers without somewhere to send them, but nobody wants to build the places to send food waste until it is being collected,” he said.
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