More than 931 million tonnes of food, equalling nearly 17 percent of the total food available for consumption in 2019, were dumped in dustbins, dampening global efforts to reduce hunger and emissions, said a new UN report on Thursday.
The staggering amount of food waste would fit into 23 million fully-loaded 40-tonne trucks. And if these trucks are lined up bumper-to-bumper, then the queue would be long enough to circle the Earth seven times.
Shockingly, households contributed a massive 11 percent, food services added five percent and retail outlets two percent to the total discarded food, according to the Food Waste Index Report 2021 prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP).
"Businesses, governments and citizens around the world have to do their part to reduce food waste," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
Food production releases over 25 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for causing global warming, said a study by the University of Oxford in 2018. Food before reaching the consumers' plate accounts for eight to 10 percent of global emissions.
"Reducing food waste would cut greenhouse gas emissions, slow the destruction of nature through land conversion and pollution, enhance the availability of food and thus reduce hunger and save money at a time of global recession," added Andersen.
Even developing countries are wasting food
Strikingly, household per capita food waste has been broadly similar across country income groups, suggesting that action on food waste is equally relevant in high, upper-middle and lower-middle-income countries.
The data about household-level food waste defies "earlier narratives concentrating on consumer food waste in developed countries, and food production, storage and transportation losses in developing countries."
"For a long time, it was assumed that food waste in the home was a significant problem only in developed countries," said Marcus Gover, CEO of WRAP. "With the publication of the Food Waste Index report, we see that things are not so clear cut."
Such wastage was happening when more than 690 million people were affected by hunger in 2019, and nearly 3 billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet. The number is likely to soar as the COVID-19 pandemic has affected livelihood and income, affecting low-income families the most.
Preparing food waste data
But data collection for calculating food waste globally still remains a challenge. Data collection has to be in a specific format and follow certain guidelines to prepare food waste index.
However, UNEP maintains that a growing number of countries have started showing interest in collecting data on food wastage. Around 14 countries have measured food waste according to the requirements of the index.
"A total of 54 countries had data for at least one of the three sectors covered by the report," the UNEP said. Data were used from various sources for other countries, including government surveys, research, and studies carried out by multiple organizations.
(Cover: A woman picks up vegetables discarded by food vendors at a garbage dump site of a wholesale market in Xi'an, Shaanxi province July 27, 2014. /Reuters)