Food waste: the impacts and the Science behind it
By Clement, Michael, Olsen, Wilson
Food waste is a massive problem in today's world; a problem that requires only the most urgent action.
It is reaching a tipping point where if we don’t act now we won’t be able to stop it. Out of 9,278 tonnes of Municipal Waste (MSW), 3,337 tonnes is food waste in HK (Environment Protection Department, n.d.).
You may ask, what is the source of food waste? While there are many different origin points for food waste, the most common include buying too much food, such as when you buy more than one set meal, which for some could be too much. An example of this is when you order a steak with salad and fries on the side at a restaurant, and you don’t agree with the fries and salad, so eating only the main dish. Through this, you would waste the fries and salad which could have just been eaten.
Other reasons can include overproduction, meaning that the source of produce churns-out too much food from the socially optimal amount. An cause of this could be the over-allocation of food in a particular area, causing the food that couldn’t be sold to be thrown away. This is actually one of the top causes of food waste. Food waste also causes issues within our environment when sent to landfills. In a landfill, food is decomposed by bacteria, many of which release methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that has a warming potential around 21 times that of carbon dioxide, assuming equal mass (EPA, n.d.). About 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from food waste and could be reduced simply by finishing the food we produce (WWF, n.d.).
Whenever we frivolously waste food, we are also wasting the inordinate amount of resources required for cultivation. Take the example of beef, which comes from an animal that consumes vast quantities of water to thrive. This can be seen as approximately 1779 gallons of water are used to make one pound of beef! Throwing that piece of beef away wastes the water that could be diverted for different purposes (Foodtank, 2013). Such as providing clean drinking water, and clean shower water.
Whilst we waste food, there are always people out there who are hungry and in need of the food that we are throwing away. The value of the food we waste (2.6 Trillion USD worth of food) would be enough to feed the 815 million people who are hungry in our world! (RESET, n.d.).
Food waste leads to transport costs in terms of CO2 emissions, such as when small trucks pick up food waste to take them to processing centres. And when long haul trucks later take them to a landfill. In the US alone, transportation of food to consumers takes up 10% of the energy budget (Barone & Aharoni, 2019, 2021). Increasing globalization has enabled seasonal foods to be available on a regular basis thanks to an efficient transport system. That distance which our food travels is ever-increasing, which compounds the greenhouse emissions made through their agriculture. (Pope, 2014).
In conclusion, food waste has an enormous environmental and economic impact on our community. The solution of which is simple; do not waste food, eat leftovers, and do not overbuy. Respect for food is respect for life, so let's start now!