Up To Half The World's Food Goes To Waste

The UK's Institute of Mechanical Engineers has written a report that says 30 - 50% of the world's food production simply gets dumped (See here). That's around 2 billion tonnes, or around 280 kilos for every human being on the planet each year.

That's obscene. Especially when you consider there nearly a billion hungry people (1 in 7) on the planet.

The reasons given for this waste are numerous, including: poor storage; over-zealous sell-by dates; special offers (encouraging people to buy more than they can use); fussy consumers; supermarkets demanding veg that look perfect; poor agricultural practises; poor engineering; and inadequate transport.

Imagine if we could put this right. We could not only feed the starving, but we'd have to capacity to feed the growing world's population without using up more land, water, or energy.

It's pathetic that we've got to the stage where we're so wasteful with everything, not just food. We are truly a throwaway society in every respect. From production to processing to transport to market to consumer to the dump. Waste all the way.

It's the reason the planet's in such a mess. Climate change, deforestation, polluted air, poisoned land and water, disappearing lakes and rivers. On and on it goes.

It doesn't have to be this way. We are better than this.