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- Between 33-50% of all food produced globally is never eaten, and the value of this wasted food is worth over $1 trillion (to put that in perspective, in the USA food waste represents 1.3% of the total GDP).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- Meanwhile 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. 1 in 9 people on the planet are starving or malnourished.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- Each and every starving person could be sufficiently fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the USA, UK and Europe each year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- In the UK over 1 million people accessed a food bank in 2016, while in the USA 40 million Americans live in food poverty.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- It takes a land mass larger than China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan combined to grow the food each year that is ultimately never eaten. This land is being deforested, species are being driven to extinction and indigenous populations are being moved, all to produce food that goes to waste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- Food that is never eaten accounts for 25% of all fresh water consumption globally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- When food waste goes to landfill, it decomposes without access to oxygen and creates methane, which is 23x more deadly than carbon dioxide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- If food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China & the USA).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- In developed countries, over half of all food waste takes place in the home.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- In the UK the average family throws away 22% of their weekly shop, which is worth \u00a3700 per year. In the US, the per-family equivalent is worth a hefty $2,275 each year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
With stats like these, it is impossible to deny just how harmful and careless our food production and consumption systems and habits are (though no doubt, Trump could give it a go). Change is necessary \u00a0if we are to try and curb the damage we are doing to the planet, and work towards ending the gross inequality we\u2019re accommodating.<\/p>\n
While a number of countries have introduced measures to reduce national levels of food waste, Britain comes up embarrassingly short. According to a survey conducted by the Waste and Resources Action Programme<\/a> (WRAP), UK households binned \u00a313bn worth of food in 2015 that could have been eaten, with an estimated 7.3m tonnes of household food waste thrown away. This meant that the average UK household wasted \u00a3470 worth of food, which went in the bin when it could have been eaten. The avoidable food waste generated 19m tonnes of greenhouse gases over its lifetime \u2013 preventing that pollution would be equivalent to taking one in four cars off UK roads.<\/p>\n
- In the UK the average family throws away 22% of their weekly shop, which is worth \u00a3700 per year. In the US, the per-family equivalent is worth a hefty $2,275 each year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- In developed countries, over half of all food waste takes place in the home.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- If food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China & the USA).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- When food waste goes to landfill, it decomposes without access to oxygen and creates methane, which is 23x more deadly than carbon dioxide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Food that is never eaten accounts for 25% of all fresh water consumption globally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- It takes a land mass larger than China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan combined to grow the food each year that is ultimately never eaten. This land is being deforested, species are being driven to extinction and indigenous populations are being moved, all to produce food that goes to waste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- In the UK over 1 million people accessed a food bank in 2016, while in the USA 40 million Americans live in food poverty.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Each and every starving person could be sufficiently fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the USA, UK and Europe each year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Meanwhile 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. 1 in 9 people on the planet are starving or malnourished.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n