In our last post, we tackled the environmental implications of food production, and now let us set our sights on the end of the supply chain, specifically food waste. For the purpose of this blog post, ‘food waste’ shall be defined as edible parts of food that are produced or harvested for human consumption but that are not ultimately consumed by people (Cakar et al., 2020), alongside its resource inputs.

While researching this week’s theme, I was reminded of a movie that I had watched many years ago – Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs! 😀 The movie was released in 2009 and it tells the story of an inventor who develops a machine that turns water into food in order to satisfy the various cravings of the townsfolk. Subsequently, the machine gains sentience and begins to create literal food storms, turning the town into a landfill full of magnified versions of foodstuff. Hmmm…does this situation – albeit on a smaller scale – reflect the global landscape of food waste to you?

More Than Just Food

So does food waste just encompass the leftovers and spoiled produce as depicted in the movie? Well, food waste extends beyond the produce that we throw into our bins, in fact, it is highly intertwined with the production processes all the way to the consumption stage. When we waste food, we are also wasting all the resources that went into growing and distributing it. Tonini et al (2018) posits that annually, an estimated one-third of all food produced in the world goes to waste. To put that in perspective, it is equivalent to about 1.3 billion tons of fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, seafood, and grains that either never leave the farm, get lost or spoiled during distribution, or are thrown away in hotels, grocery stores, restaurants, schools, or home kitchens. Yikes, there are many stages in which wastage occurs ಥ_ಥ

Additionally, it also ends up wasting nearly 25% of water resources in the form of uneaten produce, amounting to over US$172 billion in wasted water annually (Simon, 2018)! Simon (2018) estimates just within the United States alone, over US$220 billion spent on growing, transporting, and processing almost 70 million tons of food ends up going to waste. Within Singapore, food waste generated has increased by about 20% over the past 10 years, amounting to 607,000 tonnes being incinerated (NEA, n.d.).

The Earth is Full

Food waste that ends up in landfills produces a large amount of methane, and you can read more about its implications in our post here!

Moreover, it is estimated that 1.4 billion hectares of land has been dedicated to produce unconsumed food (FAO, 2013), a surface that is 19,468 times greater than Singapore (72,570 hectares) (gov.sg, n.d.). The production of food often involves intensive farming and large tracts of land derived from deforestation, while causing serious ramifications on soil fertility and potential desertification over time. Majority of food waste that occurs at the production stage takes place on land with extremely high levels of degradation due to the poorly maintained soils and monocropping – the resultant yields are thus unsuitable for sale and discarded (Ishangulyyev et al., 2019). Consequently, this puts undue stress on the land and resources which are used to produce food for us.

Take a look at the video below for an in-depth understanding of soil degradation caused by agriculture.

Alongside the degradation of land, the depletion of freshwater is also a cause of concern. The production of meat and dairy is extremely water intensive as freshwater is required to cultivate crops – such as grain – to feed the animals and fundamentally, water is needed to hydrate them. Hawthorne (2017) postulates that It takes about 8 to 10 times more water to produce meat than grain. A significant amount of the world’s freshwater – around 70% – is diverted to the agriculture industry, of which 24% of it, or 45 trillion gallons are wasted.

What Can We Do?

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were introduced in 2015 in response to global concern about climate change. These goals outline a global plan for ‘peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future’. Particularly, Goal 12, Target 12.3 states that:

‘By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses’.

The fact that we waste 33% of the food produced globally (Tonini et al., 2018) translates to a huge potential to reduce our environmental footprint. So here’s some tips for reducing food wastage from us to you:

Do leave a comment if you have additional tips, we would love to hear them 😀 Till then remember to stay safe and we will see you for our next post on COVID-19’s impact on the food supply chain!

 

References:

Cakar, B., Aydin, S., Varank, G., & Ozcan, H. K. (2019). Assessment of environmental impact of food waste in Turkey. Journal of Cleaner Production. 244. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118846

FAO. (2013). Food wastage footprint: Impacts on natural resources. Available from: http://www.fao.org/3/i3347e/i3347e.pdf [Accessed 3 October 2020]

Gov.sg. (n.d.). Total land area of Singapore. Available from: https://data.gov.sg/dataset/total-land-area-of-singapore [Accessed 3 October 2020]

Hawthorne, J. (2017). 5 ways food waste is destroying our beautiful planet. New Food. Available from: https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/43551/five-ways-food-waste-environment/ [Accessed 3 October 2020]

Ishangulyyev, R., Kim, S. H., & Lee, S. H. (2019). Understanding Food Loss and Waste – Why are We Losing and Wasting Food? Foods. 8(8). Available from: 10.3390/foods8080297

NEA. (n.d.). Food waste management. Available from: https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/waste-management/3r-programmes-and-resources/food-waste-management [Accessed 3 October 2020]

Simon, B. (2018). What environmental problems does wasting food cause? Forbes. Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/07/18/what-environmental-problems-does-wasting-food-cause/#643f764c2f7a [Accessed 3 October 2020]

Tonini, D., Albizzati, P. F., & Astrup, T. F. (2018). Environmental impacts of food waste: Learnings and challenges from A case study on UK. Waste Management. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2018.03.032 

Images:

Filminspector. (2013). Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs – A Food-alanche of Fun! Available from: http://animatedfilmreviews.filminspector.com/2013/09/cloudy-with-chance-of-meatballs-2009.html [Accessed 3 October 2020]