Food waste

Trash container with fruits and vegetables

Roads banner in the United States during the first world war :
"Food will win the war - do not waste it!"
("Food is decisive for a war - don't waste it!")

Food waste or -verschwendung (English food waste , there the same terms as the name for "food waste") refers to the phenomenon that particularly in the "developed" countries or developed countries the manufactured for human consumption much of life - or food be destroyed - due to e.g. As bad or unplanned or too extensive purchases exceeded Mindesthaltsbarkeitsdaten or not even, or because they can not be sold due to an oversupply or non-conformist or could in the trade go.

According to Welthungerhilfe , around a third of the food that would otherwise be sufficiently produced for around 12 billion people worldwide is destroyed.

Problem

In view of the recurring and increasing global supply and hunger crises with around a billion starving people worldwide, as well as the limited resources wasted, for example, through the use of soil or the use of water or the CO ₂ emissions associated with production , the phenomenon of food waste is exacerbated perceived as an ethical , political and economic problem. The extrapolated average food waste of 150 kg per person per year for the USA between 2015 and 2017, for example, meant the waste or senseless use of 354,000 tons of pesticides and more than 816,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer ; The 18 million tonnes of wasted food that was extrapolated for Germany for WWF required 2.6 million hectares of agricultural production area and released 48 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Situation in individual countries

Germany

According to a 2012 study by the University of Stuttgart commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture , eleven million tons of food were wasted in Germany, which corresponds to 138 kg per person. According to the study “The Big Throwing Away” published in mid-2015 by the environmental organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF), it was 18 million tons at that time, which together corresponded to an average of 313 kg per second on agricultural production areas ( fields , fields), in retail outlets , in canteens or in private households as " waste " or "garbage" destroyed edible food.

According to the figures calculated for the WWF by the Institute for Sustainable Nutrition at the University of Münster in 2018, 60% of wasted food in the value chain and 40% among end consumers were destroyed.

Switzerland

In Switzerland , one million tonnes of food waste is generated every year from private households, 950,000 tonnes from the food industry , 290,000 tonnes from gastronomy , 224,500 tonnes from agriculture and 100,000 tonnes from retail . Of the total of 2,564,500 tons, two thirds would still be edible at the time of disposal.

United States

According to a study by the American University of Vermont , people in the country threw away an average of 422 grams of food per day between 2007 and 2014, i.e. more than 150 kg per year.

Counter-strategies

In 2015, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by more than 190 countries . Among other things, the goals envisage that by 2030 per capita food losses at retail and consumer level will be halved and the resulting food losses along the production and supply chain will be reduced.

Members of the EU Parliament and z. For example, the German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) called for food waste to be halved by 2030, and the WWF called for a “national action plan”.

The German state of Bavaria has been collecting data on food losses across the country since 2012; Baden-Württemberg has anchored the avoidance of food waste in its waste management plan, and North Rhine-Westphalia is the first German state to set up a "round table" on the subject.

Initiatives such as B. foodsharing.de or United Against Waste are involved at various levels to improve the problem and develop counter-strategies such as B. improved management along the value chain, more sustainable marketing strategies or changes in consumer habits . In 2017, the Too Good To Go app was awarded the Federal Ecodesign Award.

Web links

Commons : Food Waste - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wiktionary: waste - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h 18 million tons for the barrel. Retrieved December 24, 2018 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d The big throwing away. December 24, 2018, accessed December 24, 2018 .
↑ WWF , June 2015, Steffen Noleppa, Matti Cartsburg, agripol - network for policy advice GbR : Das große Wegschmeissen - From the field to the consumer: Extent and environmental effects of food waste in Germany (PDF, December 24, 2018)
↑ Food waste in Switzerland. In: bafu.admin.ch . April 29, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2019 .
↑ Food waste . In: bafu.admin.ch . Retrieved January 19, 2020 .