5 March 2021/Deborah Devis
cosmosmagazine.com
Waste not, want not
In a world where many people go hungry, throwing away food isn’t so cool.We’ve known for a while that not all of the world’s food is eaten – but how much of it is wasted wasn’t entirely clear, until the UN completed some new research.
The Food Waste Index Report 2021, from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partner organization WRAP, detailed that in 2019 approximately 931 million tonnes of food – 17% of the total amount available to consumers – went to waste.
This would be enough to fill 23 million, fully loaded 40-tonne trucks, which bumper-to-bumper would circle the world seven times.
The report identified 152 datapoints concerning food waste over 54 countries and found that nearly every country that measured their food waste had substantial food waste – household food waste sat at 11%, on average, which was higher than food services at 5% and retail outlets at 2%. Income level wasn’t a factor.
On a global-per-capita level, this equates to 121 kilograms of consumer-level food wasted each year, with households accounting for 74kg of it.
