International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste

Food waste. Ilona F. / Pixabay.com / 2018 / CC0 1.0

The 29th of September is The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.

The goal of the day is:

• to raise awareness of the extent of the food loss and waste problem locally and globally;
• to raise awareness of possible solutions on all levels, from micro to macro ;
• to promote collective global efforts to eradicating food loss and waste.

Note that food loss is different from food waste:

• Food loss occurs during production and right up to but not including the retail level. “Globally, around 14 percent of food produced is lost between harvest and retail” ^[1]United Nations. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. Accessed September 2021 at http://www.fao.org/international-day-awareness-food-loss-waste
• Food waste covers the retail and consumption levels (domestic and commercial kitchens). “[Globally], an estimated 17 percent of total global food production is wasted (11 percent in households, 5 percent in the food service and 2 percent in retail). ^[2]United Nations. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. Accessed September 2021 at http://www.fao.org/international-day-awareness-food-loss-waste

Reduction of both loss and waste is key in fight against hunger and climate change.

Much of the food purchased by households gets discarded as food waste because of misunderstanding that revolves around date markings on packaging, improper storage of household food items, and lack of knowledge of how to preserve excess food for the longer term before it goes bad.

At supermarkets, when you change your mind about buying some produce or frozen item that is already in your cart, don’t toss the lettuce into the supermarket freezers, or the frozen box of fish onto the shelf of tinned beans, where both will go to waste: take the 5 seconds and return those perishable food items to exactly where you got them so they will not spoil.

The waste might seem sustainable to you in the small picture but in the big picture we are fooling only ourselves: it is not. Composting is slightly better than sending food to landfill, but only slightly.

When you waste food, you are also wasting the water, land, energy, work, equipment, time and capital that went into producing and bringing you that food. The work of many real people has gone to waste.

And when it’s in landfill decomposing, it contributes to climate change by emitting greenhouse gases.

When all of us work to prevent food loss and waste, we free up food for the world’s most vulnerable. This not only costs us no money, but it also even saves us money.

Preventing loss and waste is a vital part of any farm-to-fork strategy: it ensures that the food actually makes it from farm to fork, and doesn’t get lost in between.

Packaging plays an important role in preventing and minimising food waste by protecting and preserving food to ensure that it is delivered in a safe, quality format to consumers. Yet at the same time, we face the need to also keep single-use food packaging out of our landfill.

Innovation such as new smart packaging that can monitor freshness of food inside the package may help to reduce food being unnecessarily discarded owing to arbitrary dates on the package (though it could be questioned if the packaging itself will be re-usable or just more packaging that can’t or isn’t recycled and gets added to landfill.)

Food that is lost and wasted accounts for 38 percent of total energy usage in the global food system. It is also responsible for needless greenhouse gas emissions:

“Estimates suggest that 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed. ” ^[3]UN Environment Programme. UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021

Carbon pollution attributed to food that goes to waste is estimated to be the nearly the same amount as that generated by all road vehicle traffic in the world:

“The UN FAO estimates total carbon pollution from global food waste to be 4.4 GtCO2 per year or 8% of anthropogenic GHG emissions which is very nearly the same amount as global road transport emissions.” ^[4]Collins, Andra Spacht. First International Day of Food Loss and Waste Awareness. New York, NY: National Resources Defence Council. 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.nrdc.org/experts/andrea-spacht-collins/first-international-day-awareness-flw

In the U.S. alone, estimates of knock-on waste from wasted food include 19 percent of US cropland, 21 percent of landfill content, 18 percent of farming fertilizer and 21 percent of agricultural water. ^[5]Collins, Andra Spacht. First International Day of Food Loss and Waste Awareness. New York, NY: National Resources Defence Council. 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.nrdc.org/experts/andrea-spacht-collins/first-international-day-awareness-flw

The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste is in support of UN Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3:

“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.”

Promotion of the day is jointly managed by the Food and Nutrition Organization of the UN (FAO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

#FLWDay #FoodLoss #FoodWaste

See also: World Food Day, World Water Day, World Food Safety Day

History

A resolution to start observing the day was officially passed in 2019:

“The [74th] UN General Assembly, on 19 December 2019, designated 29 September as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (A/RES/74/209)” ^[6]International Institute for Sustainable Development. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste 2021. Accessed September 2021 at https://sdg.iisd.org/events/international-day-of-awareness-of-food-loss-and-waste-2021/

The first year for it was actually the following year, in 2020. ^[7]United Nations Enviroment Programme. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.unep.org/events/un-day/international-day-awareness-food-loss-and-waste

Resources

A guide to getting involved in the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste

International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste 

International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste: Key messages

National Center for Home Food Preservation

Save the Food

UN Environment Programme. Uncovering the global food scandal

UN Environment Programme Food Waste Index Report 2021

Rescue Restaurant Leftovers

Sources

Buzby, Jean. Three Key Messages from the First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. USDA. 29 July 2021. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/09/29/three-key-messages-first-international-day-awareness-food-loss-and-waste

European Union. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. Accessed September 2021 at https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food-waste/international-day-awareness-food-loss-and-waste_en

Food and Agricultural Organization. Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste. Accessed September 2021 at http://www.fao.org/platform-food-loss-waste/news/detail/en/c/1415582/

Fridberg, Linda. The researcher’s best tips for the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. Karlstad, Sweden: Centrum för tjänsteforskning, University of Karlsbad. 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.kau.se/en/ctf/news/researchers-best-tips-international-day-awareness-food-loss-and-waste

Future Food Systems Cooperative Research Centre. International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.futurefoodsystems.com.au/event/international-day-of-awareness-on-food-loss-and-waste-reduction/

Inaugural awareness day of food loss, waste. Sydney, New South Wales: Food & Drink Business. 24 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au/news/inaugural-awareness-day-of-food-loss-waste

Sustainable Development Goals: Indicator 12.3.1 – Global Food Loss and Waste FAO. Accessed August 2021 at http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/indicators/1231/en/

United Nations Environment Programme. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. 29 September 2020. Accessed September 2021 at https://www.unep.org/events/un-day/international-day-awareness-food-loss-and-waste