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Food waste facts
There are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world, but the
approximately 40 million tonnes of food wasted by US households, retailers
and food services each year would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every
one of them.
The irrigation water used globally to grow food that is wasted would be
enough for the domestic needs (at 200 litres per person per day) of 9
billion people - the number expected on the planet by 2050.
If we planted trees on land currently used to grow unnecessary surplus and
wasted food, this would offset a theoretical maximum of 100% of greenhouse
gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
10% of rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food that
is never eaten.
The UK, US and Europe have nearly twice as much food as is required by the
nutritional needs of their populations. Up to half the entire food supply
is wasted between the farm and the fork. If crops wastefully fed to
livestock are included, European countries have more than three times more
food than they need, while the US has around four times more food than is
needed, and up to three-quarters of the nutritional value is lost before it
reaches people's mouths.
UK Households waste 25% of all the food they buy.
All the world's nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of
malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US,
UK and Europe.
A third of the world's entire food supply could be saved by reducing waste –
or enough to feed 3 billion people; and this would still leave enough
surplus for countries to provide their populations with 130 per cent of
their nutritional requirements.
Between 2 and 500 times more carbon dioxide can be saved by feeding food
waste to pigs rather than sending it for anaerobic digestion (the UK
government's preferred option). But under European laws feeding food waste
to pigs is banned. In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, by contrast, it is
mandatory to feed some food waste to pigs.
2.3 million tonnes of fish discarded in the North Atlantic and the North
Sea each year; 40 to 60% of all fish caught in Europe are discarded – either
because they are the wrong size, species, or because of the ill-governed
European quota system.
An estimated 20 to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables rejected even before they
reach the shops – mostly because they do not match the supermarkets'
excessively strict cosmetic standards.
8.3 million hectares of land required to produce just the meat and dairy
products wasted in UK homes and in US homes, shops and restaurants. That is
7 times the amount of Amazon rainforest destroyed in Brazil in one year,
largely for cattle grazing and soy production to export for livestock feed.
The bread and other cereal products thrown away in UK households alone would
have been enough to lift 30 million of the world's hungry people out of
malnourishment
4600 kilocalories per day of food are harvested for every person on the
planet; of these, only around 2000 on average are eaten – more than half of
it is lost on the way.
4 million people in the UK, 43 million in the EU and around 35 million in
the US suffer from food poverty.
24 to 35% of school lunches end up in the bin.
An estimated 20 million tonnes of food wasted in Britain from the plough to
the plate.
All Food Waste Facts are from Tristram Stuart's Waste: Uncovering the Global
Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009).
