Food waste is a massive issue around the world with an estimated one-third of all food produced with the purpose of human consumption going to waste, this equates to around 6.6 million tons of food waste in the UK alone. Massive amounts of labour, transportation and resources have gone into making this food and to top it all off it creates methane, a greenhouse gas, as it decomposes.
In the UK we have started recycling food waste to produce electricity and heat as well as fertiliser for our crops as well as this, the supermarkets have cracked down on food waste. Supermarkets such as Tesco now redirect some of their stock which may have passed their sell-by date to other worthy causes such as charities and food banks or the creation of pet food and other animal foods. The number one use of their food is animal feed with a sharp uptake in recent years by improving the efficiency of the process and increasing the variety of foods that can be used in making the feed.
While reducing food waste is a collective issue, it is down to individuals and companies to make headway and Tesco have reported that they are 82% towards their target of no food safe for human consumption going to waste. This is great news but in reality, it only equates to a very small amount of food as the retail sector is responsible for 2% of wasted food globally while restaurants and other food outlets are responsible for 5% and households are responsible for 11%. On top of this, an estimated 14% of food is wasted between harvest and retail, together making up the total 31% of food wasted that was produced for human consumption.
With households making up a massive 11%, there is definitely room for improvement. The United Nations Environment Programme’s 2021 Food Waste Index estimated that 569 million tonnes of food is household waste which equates to an average of 74kg per household every year, but not every country is equal when it comes to the amount of food they throw away. For example, Russia is the lowest on the scale with 33kg of waste while the United States weighs in at 59kg per household per year and the United Kingdom top them with 77kg. Some of the worst for food waste according to the index are Australia with 102kg, Malta with 129kg and Nigeria with 189kg.
An interesting solution to the problem comes from South Korea where they installed bins equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) capable of tracking the amount of food waste being disposed of allowing households to receive a bill for the respective amount of waste disposed of. Food waste will be recycled to be used as compost for urban gardens or for animal feed, alternatively, it will be burned to create biofuel. This process saves the country money which would otherwise be used to process waste at landfills or sewage plants, also there is income from the RFID bins which cost the average four-person household about six dollars per month which are said to pay for 60% of the cost of maintaining the bins and the recycling system. On top of this, they have created a law saying that all food waste must be disposed of in biodegradable bags.
South Korea was one of the biggest producers of food waste in the world creating 17,100 tons of food waste per day in 2005, the same year that a ban was placed on sending food waste to landfills. The reason why their food waste was so high was due to their cultural concept of “Banchan”, having a variety of side dishes accompanying every meal, which resulted in a significant amount of leftover food. Due to the country’s uptake of the three R’s, reduce, reuse and recycle, the country is recycling more than 95% of its food waste, this is up from just 2% in 1995. This is a staggering statistic with the United Kingdom managing to recycle an estimated 14% of our food waste.
South Korea should be hailed as one of the heroes of food waste for their pay-as-you-throw mandate which was introduced in 2013 and their continued progress to create a better future, including, making it illegal to dump liquid waste into the sea and encouraging residents to reduce the moisture of food waste before depositing to safe money as well as encouraging a reduction of overall food waste being disposed of.