Food Waste-A Critical Issue

Hello readers,

The part of Thane city where I live has a beautiful, much wider, well constructed road that runs straight about one kilometer and ends up close to Bhiwandi-Thane bypass road. This road sees a footfalls of hundreds of people right from toddlers, to 90 plus years older grandpas and grandmas. Its quite happening place for teenagers, youngsters and all. Just two days ago, on Thursday morning, I went for a walk as my routine activity. Near the far end of this well-planned road, I saw a very ugly, disturbing scene. More than 100 kilograms of cooked food was thrown by someone there. I could see lots of rice, vegetables, and different types of eatables lying in open and obviously attracting crows, dogs, flies and other animals.

The sight was not only ugly looking, but rather disheartening! How can the people be so irresponsible and just throw away such a precious resource! My mind keeps wandering around small and large parties organized by the people for celebrating the birthday parties -right from the first birthday to may be the 90 th birthday- then there are engagement ceremonies, weddings, house-warming parties, retirement or promotion parties, any other small and large rituals or just partying for no reason to have fun!!!

Why not? We have very right to celebrate and enjoy our lives. But look at the ‘after-party’s scenario. In most places and events or parties, the leftover food is never treated with respect. It is simply discarded along with all other types of garbage. In this, and the following few articles, I am going to discuss the adverse impacts of wasting such food on the environment, economy and society in general and what needs to be done to prevent such adverse impacts. Such adverse impacts are not only harmful and damaging for nature and environment, but also for the human health and well-being.

Food wastage is a global problem. But it is more prominent in the countries like India which is really surprising as in spite of being home to a significant portion of the world’s population facing hunger and malnutrition, India also grapples with a substantial amount of food waste. We are wasting food at an alarming rate.

According to ‘Food Waste Index Report 2024’ released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the world has wasted 1.05 billion tons of food in 2022 which is almost one-fifth of all food available to consumers.

This report tracks the country-level progress to halve food waste by 2030 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, which aims to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. To catalyse essential action towards reducing food waste, it’s imperative to grasp the extent of food waste. Measuring food waste allows countries to comprehend the magnitude of the issue, thereby revealing the size of the opportunity, while establishing a baseline for tracking progress. Hence this report carries a lot of significance. More about this and other related issues, next week. Till then, have a good weekend.

(The author is an environmentalist. Views personal.)