Facts on food waste:
Food waste is a problem that most of us are aware of. What does not transpire easily though, is how staggering a problem this is. Millions of tons of food (that could have been consumed) ends up being wasted every year and not only costs us billions of £s annually but is also a big drain on an already strained environment.
Below are some simple facts that help put a perspective around the scale of this problem.
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WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme)
- An estimated 8.3 million tonnes of household food waste is produced each year in the UK, most of which could have been eaten.
- 2.9 million tonnes is thrown away because it was not used in time.
- The amount of food we throw away is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases in the UK.
- If we stopped wasting food that could have been eaten we could prevent at least 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalnet emissions each year.
- All this wasted food is costly; in the UK we spend £12 billion every year buying and then throwing away good food. That works out at £480 for the average UK household, increasing to £680 a year for households with children - an average of just over £50 a month.
- Throwing away food that could have been eaten is responsible for the equivalent of 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year and that's the same as the CO2 emitted by one in every four cars on UK roads. www.wrap.org.uk www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
FOODWISE - DO SOMETHING
- Average household bins in metropolitan Sydney contain over 5 kg of food waste.
- Average Australian household throws away $616 worth of food per annum.
- Food rotting in landfills gives off a gas called methane. Methane is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than the carbon pollution coming out of the car exhaust.
- Using 'paddock to plate' calculations, food waste in Australia is responsible for 11.4 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions every year.
- Food waste also wastes the water that went into its production. A kilo of potato waste costs 500 litres of water. www.foodwise.com.au www.dosomething.net.au
New Scientist
- More energy is wasted in the perfectly edible food discarded by people in the US each year than is extracted annually from the oil and gas reserves off the nation's coastlines.
- Recent study shows 16 per cent of energy consumed in the US is used to produce food. Yet at least 25 per cent food is wasted each year. www.newscientist.com
PlanetGreen.com - Discovery
- On average we waste 14 per cent of our food purchases per year
- Average American family throws out over $600 of fruit per year. http://www.planetgreen.discovery.com
AOL News
- Research from University of Texas shows American food waste represents 350 million barrels of oil.
- That's enough to power the whole country for a week.
- Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, with US agriculture sector representing about 7 per cent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, even before taking into account the energy used to process and transport the food.
- "If you were to ship all our food waste produced in one day to one central location, there'd be enough to fill up one Rose Bowl" says Jonathan Bloom in his book "American Wasteland" referring to the 90,000-seat football stadium in California http://www.aolnews.com
canada.com
- More than one-third of food purchased in Canada never gets eaten.
- A study US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases found that 40 per cent of all the food produced in US is thrown out. This amounts to $43 billion worth of food !
- The prevention of 1 tonne of food waste has the potential to save 4.2 tonnes of CO2.
- Food disposal is a big issue. Some now categorise food waste as the third largest waste stream, after paper and yard waste. In the US, food disposal is said to cost $1 billion each year.
- Single largest contributor to food waste is our homes. An average household throws away about $600 worth of food a year. The waste comes in around 15 per cent of a household food budget. http://www.canada.com
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