World throws away more than 1 billion meals a day – 03/27/2024 – Environment

Humanity wasted the equivalent of one billion meals per day in 2022, according to a study released this Wednesday (27) by UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).

This calculation is provisional and the amount of food wasted could be much higher, point out those responsible for the Food Waste Index.

Although there are still 800 million people suffering from hunger, the world wasted more than a billion tons of food in 2022, the equivalent of more than US$1 trillion (R$5.21 trillion at the time).

This represents approximately almost a fifth of everything produced, “a global tragedy”, says the text.

“Millions of people will go hungry today as food is wasted around the world,” says Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director. And this is not just a moral failure, but also an environmental one, she highlights.

Food waste produces five times more CO emissions_two than the aviation sector and requires large areas of land where food is grown that is not consumed.

The report, in conjunction with the non-profit organization Wrap, is the second on global food waste prepared by the UN.

As data collection improves, the true magnitude of the problem will become clearer, says Clementine O’Connor, also at UNEP.

“To me, it’s just scary,” says Wrap’s Richard Swannell. “It would actually be possible to feed every currently hungry person in the world with one meal a day, using only the food that is wasted each year.”

Restaurants, cafeterias and hotels were responsible for 28% of total food waste in 2022, while retail trade, such as butchers and grocery stores, discarded 12%. The biggest culprits were homes, which represented 60%, around 631 million tons.

Much of this occurs because people simply buy more food than they need, miscalculate portion sizes, and don’t eat leftovers, Swannell says.

Another problem is expiration dates. There are perfectly good products that are thrown away because people incorrectly assume that they have gone bad.

The report also explains that many foods, especially in the developing world, are lost in transportation or spoil due to lack of refrigeration.

Contrary to popular belief, food waste is not just a problem in rich countries and can be observed across the world.

Countries with warmer climates also generate more waste, possibly due to greater consumption of fresh food.

Devastating effects

Companies also contribute to the problem because it is cheap to dispose of unused products thanks to landfills. “It’s quicker and easier to dispose of these days because waste taxes are zero or very low,” says O’Connor.

Food waste has “devastating effects” for people and the planet, the report concludes.

The conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture is a leading cause of habitat loss, and food waste occupies the equivalent of almost 30% of land devoted to agricultural use.

“If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet, behind the United States and China”, highlights Swannell.

In Brazil

The Food Waste Index calculates that, in Brazil, the rate, in the family consumption stage, is 94 kg per capita per year.

This estimate only takes into account domestic food consumption in the country, based on a pilot study carried out in 2023 in five regions of the city of Rio de Janeiro, with different socioeconomic profiles.

“Although it is a study restricted to Rio de Janeiro, the data shows that waste occurs even in lower middle class neighborhoods. The factors that lead to waste need to be explored in qualitative research. It is important to highlight that the amount of 94 kg per person per year takes into account both leftover meals, such as rice and beans, as well as fruit peels and bones”, says Gustavo Porpino, an analyst at Embrapa Alimentos e Território, who acted as a reviewer of the index, in a statement.

“The UNEP methodology does not categorize waste as avoidable and unavoidable, because it considers it important to reduce the disposal of organic waste as a whole”, he explains.