BY DEVIANA DEWI
DEVIANA DEWI is a 1st Year PhD Student in International Development.
"I am taking some of these leftovers with me to reduce food waste. I mean, we were just having a workshop on food and nutrition security, right?” This was my response to the stares I received from other participants of a 2017 workshop in Jakarta, while I shamelessly picked up some buffet leftover food, which the hotel would have otherwise discarded. On September 29, 2020, three years later, as the world observed the first ever International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, I reflected on how easily we overlook food waste—an invisible sin we commit every day—and how reducing food waste can become an opportunity to improve socio-economic situation and reduce environmental impacts.
We live in a world where one-third of all food production—1.3 billion tonnes—is lost or wasted annually, while at the same time over 800 million—or one in nine people globally—still suffer from hunger. Food waste, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), means food being thrown away either by choice or after expiration date due to negligence and oversupply, happening mostly at the retailers’ and consumers’ end. Meanwhile, food loss is a decrease in edible food mass occurring at all stages from harvest to production, to storage, processing and transportation, and is usually unintentional. Increased disruptions to food supply chain due to Covid-19 only aggravate this problem. However, food waste is something we can control today.
In 2016, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Indonesia, my country of origin, as the world's second largest food-waster with 300 kilograms of food per capita wasted annually, after Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the U.S., the third largest food waster, squanders 277 kilograms of food per capita annually.
If we saved one quarter of currently wasted or lost food, we could feed the world’s hungry. In Indonesia, the amount of wasted food could feed 28 million people, including the country’s 26 million poor people. This means that better food waste management alone could become an opportunity to address hunger and poverty. Furthermore, when we waste our food, we also discard resources coming from labor, time, material capital and energy required for production. Reducing food waste means feeding hungry people and improving efficiency of food production.
On the side of the environment, food waste decaying in landfills emits methane, the second main manmade greenhouse gas (GHG) after carbon dioxide that degrades our earth’s ozone layer. Although methane’s lifespan in the atmosphere is shorter than carbon dioxide, methane warms the earth 21 times more powerfully relative to carbon dioxide . The world’s food loss and waste contribute around 8% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions, if it was to be treated as a country, it would be the third largest emitter after China and the U.S.
Source: FAO, 2017
On the positive note, we—consumers—can take feasible steps to prevent food waste from our end, such as better planning for grocery shopping, smarter food preparation and storage to make food less perishable, and measuring portion not to take or cook more than what we can finish.
I often felt guilty when attending seminars at hotels serving buffet-style meals with many leftovers. When I raised this concern at a webinar on International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, one of the speakers, Lawrence Haddad from Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, shared his optimism, “A smart hotel would become a leader in this space, just like they did on towel use. Buffets are also less popular during Covid-19, so let’s make an opportunity out of that.”
It takes only one individual act to inspire others to reduce food waste. That day in 2017 I managed to do just that. After the seminar, I asked the hotel staff if I could take some of the foods with me and he handed me some plastic bags (not the most environmentally-friendly practice, but I will bring my own to-go box next time) to pack the food. Swallowing my pride, I was loading the food when other curious participants asked what I was doing. My response surprised them but also encouraged to act: “Oh that’s great, where can we get the bags to do the same?” The next thing I knew, there were seven of us packing leftovers: some for personal consumption and some for taxi drivers taking us home that night.
I believe each of us can contribute to a better planet wherever we are with whatever we have been given. It can be something as simple as finishing our meals. It is both ethically and environmentally kind.
Anti-food waste participants and facilitators (I am on the left most side)
Photo Credit: Deviana Dewi