A “global tragedy”, yet still largely under the radar.
The equivalent of a billion meals were thrown away unnecessarily every day around the world in 2022, according to UN estimates.
The scourge could be even more massive, since this estimate of edible but thrown away food is at the low end of the range, and "the real amount could be much higher", according to the latest report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on the food waste index.
“Food waste is a global tragedy.
Millions of people will go hungry today around the world as food is thrown away,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
“It’s simply astonishing,” Richard Swannell, of the NGO WRAP, who participated in writing the report, also reacted to AFP.
“We could feed all the people who suffer from hunger in the world – there are around 800 million – with one meal a day, just with the food that is wasted,” he emphasizes.
More than 630 million tonnes wasted by households
This global waste amounts to more than $1 trillion a year thrown away unnecessarily, according to estimates.
Households accounted for 60% of this food waste, or 631 million tonnes worldwide in 2022 out of more than a billion in total.
The cause is the habit of buying more than necessary, misjudging portion sizes and not eating leftovers, according to Richard Swannell.
Consumers also throw away products that are perfectly edible but whose expiration date has passed.
Much food is also lost for reasons other than simple neglect, particularly in developing countries, for example due to refrigeration problems.
But contrary to popular belief, waste is not only “a problem of rich countries” and can be observed throughout the world.
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On the business side, catering services (canteens, restaurants, etc.) accounted for 28% of wasted food and supermarkets, butchers and grocery stores of all kinds accounted for 12%.
It is currently often cheaper to simply throw away food than to find a more sustainable alternative.
“It's faster and easier because taxes on waste are zero or very low,” denounces Clementine O'Connor, responsible for the “Sustainable Food Systems” program at UNEP.
This waste, which concerns almost a fifth of the food available, is synonymous with “environmental failure”, underline the authors of the report: it generates up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the world and requires the equivalent of nearly 30% of the world's agricultural land to grow crops that will never be eaten.
If it were represented by a country, “it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the United States and China,” remarks Richard Swannell, bitterly noting that “yet people give it little thought.”
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This report, the second published by the UN on the subject, provides the most comprehensive overview to date.
And the scale of the problem has become clearer as data collection has improved.
“The more we look for food waste, the more we find,” underlines Clementine O’Connor.
Richard Swannell, for his part, hopes that this new study will be an opportunity “for each of us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and save money, simply by using the food we use better. buy already.”