A report from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) warned this Wednesday, March 27, that in 2022 more than one billion tons of food were wasted in the world, a post-pandemic year marked by the grain crisis, which engulfed a third of humanity in food insecurity. Households wasted up to 631 million tons, 60% of the total.
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In the midst of hunger alerts, potential famines and food insecurity experienced in many territories, the United Nations proposed the year 2023 halve the amount of food wasted. Since 2021, the organization has published a report on the number of tons that go to the trash can without having fulfilled their purpose.
This year's report shows that In 2022, 1,050 million tons of food will be wasted.
“This represents the waste of a fifth (19%) of the food available to consumers, waste coming from both retail and households and food service providers,” the UN document states.
We must also add the logistical problems: For the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “13% of food is lost in the supply chain, in the period between harvest and retail sale.”
Breaking down the more than one billion tons of food, to the food sector food service providers are responsible for 290 million wasted and to retailers, 131 million. But where does the biggest waste occur?
In homes, the biggest waste
According to the UN, “most of the world's food waste comes from households. Of the total food wasted in 2022, households were responsible for 631 million tons, equivalent to 60%”. On average, the report says, each person wastes 79 kg of food a year, the equivalent of about one billion servings of food a day, according to a “very conservative” calculation.
For this reason, and in the face of situations of hunger or food insecurity, the document is forceful: “This figure of waste would be equivalent to providing 1.3 meals a day for all the hungry people in the world”.
According to the report, contrary to what many think, waste does not only occur in rich countries: “The amount of food wasted in households in high-income, upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income countries differs by an average of only 7 kg per person per year.” But if There is a correlation of greater waste in hot countries.
He says, “Higher seasonal temperatures, extreme heat events and droughts make it difficult to safely store, process, transport and sell food, often resulting in significant volumes of food being wasted or lost. food”.
Immediate solutions
The United Nations called for these amounts to be reduced by half. And for this reason, it gives importance to the G20 countries. According to the report, four G20 countries – Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States – and the European Union have comprehensive estimates of food waste, allowing progress to be tracked between now and 2030.
Others, Saudi Arabia and Canada, have approximate household figures. And although the document does not talk about other nations, it does point out that “Countries like Japan and the United Kingdom demonstrate that large-scale change is possible, achieving food waste reductions of 18% and 31%.respectively.”
Another case is Chinathat imposed a law to alleviate food waste: Images of large quantities of food at banquets or other events going directly into the trash can are common and well regarded culturally. But the Government decided to legislate its ban in 2021: those who do so will face a fine of $1,500.
Finally, the UN explains, on the one hand, that one of the beneficiaries of the reduction would be the environment itself: “Food waste generates between 8% and 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which represents almost five times the total emissions of the aviation sector. And on the other hand, it gives in with a too-forgotten obviousness. “The loss contrasts with the current situation, in which 783 million people suffer from hunger and a third of humanity faces food insecurity“.
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