The most disturbing fact about the food is food waste.
There is enough food produced in the world to feed everyone.But one third of all food produced is lost or wasted. Around 1.3 billion tonnes of food costing the global economy close to $940 billion each year is wasted.
Each time food goes wasted or , , uneaten, the valuable resources like producing, processing, packaging, and transporting that food are wasted too. This means huge amounts of land, water, energy, money, and other materials are used unnecessarily. Wasting all this food is costly to individuals, businesses, municipalities and most importantly to the environment.One in nine people do not have enough food to eat, that’s 793 million people who are undernourished.That is why the food waste is inhumanity to the society and environmen.
I was reading some article on internet and found some really disturbing numbers and stats on food wasting.Putting some of them for readers.May the seriousness of the topic reaches.
- 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year.
- If wasted food was a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the United States and China
- Just one quarter of all wasted food could feed the 795 million undernourished people around the world who suffer from hunger
- Food waste in rich countries (222 million tons) is approximately equivalent to all of the food produced in Sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons)
- A person in a developed country wastes almost 100 kilograms of food per year, which is more than his or her average weight (70 kilograms)
- Lack of technology and infrastructure is the main cause of food waste in Africa, whereas household food waste in the developed world is the unfortunate cause .
- Food waste in Europe alone could feed 200 million hungry people
- Food waste generates 3.3 billions tons of carbon dioxide, which accelerates global climate change.
- If one quarter of the food currently lost or wasted could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people.
- Almost half of all fruit and vegetables produced are wasted (that’s 3.7 trillion apples).
- 8% of greenhouse gases heating the planet are caused by food waste.
- One in five shopping bags end up in the bin = $3,800 worth of groceries per household each year.
- Nearly three million people are living in poverty, one quarter are children.!
- Throwing away one burger wastes the same amount of water as a 90-minute shower.
- 4 million tonnes of food ends up as thrown waste in landfill, enough to fill 8,400 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Moreover apart from economy how insensitive of us to waste or throw the food when someone somewhere though out of our sight is starving out .
This topic needs a second part to this blog .The effects of food waste on planet must need a thought in next blog.
Lets try our best not to waste !