RETURN TO EARTH

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption, approximately 1.3 billion tons is wasted every year.

The data shows that fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food. This includes around 1.7 trillion apples alone. Global quantities wasted per year are roughly 30% for cereals, 40-50% for root crops, fruit and vegetables, 20% for oil seeds, meat and dairy plus 35% for fish.

Food losses and waste amounts to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialised countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries. In developing countries 40% of these losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels while in industrialised countries more than 40% of losses happen at retail and consumer levels.

The FAO goes on to state that if just one-quarter of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved; it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people.

What can we as individuals do about this? Ironically large quantities of food are thrown out at the retail stage due to quality standards, due to the appearance of the produce. It may be too big, too small, not straight enough, too straight, too many blemishes or just odd looking. What is this world coming to?

I guess we only have ourselves to blame for being overly fussy, but we as householders are still wasting food that we have purchased. Per capita waste by consumers is between 95-115 kg per annum in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-eastern Asia, throw away only 6-11kg a year.

Whilst this is a huge global political issue, I can’t help thinking that each and every householders needs to take ownership of its own waste and do something positive with it. This is where home composting or council recycling must take place. At the very least this will enable each and every one of us to see firsthand the amount that we waste.  Some of this waste may be natural wastage, such as vegetable peeling, apple cores and orange skins, but it can all be put to good use.

Just think how you realised how much paper, plastic and tins you threw out, when you (hopefully) started recycling these items. The same will be the case with food, albeit on a slightly smaller scale as less volume is involved.

You can compost all your vegetable and food waste, the majority of what falls into the category of carbohydrates, including anything made of flour, such as bread, pasta and cookies, and grains, for example rice, coffee grounds and teabags. If you are a wholefood plant based vegan, then there is not a lot that can’t go in. The main things that have to be avoided are animal products including all meats, fish, all dairy and fats and oils. They take forever to breakdown, attract vermin and end up stinking.

If you are currently throwing these items into your household rubbish bin and sending it to landfill, then you will be contributing to an ever increasing environmental problem. In landfill, organic waste decomposes without oxygen due to the volume of waste, resulting in odorous gases and methane, which has a potential warming potential 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Organic waste in landfill also produces leachate, a liquid substance that is created as organic material decomposes. This leachate includes harmful substances and can get into and pollute groundwater and waterways.

This should hopefully have set the scene as to why we need to compost and I will be back shortly with advice on how to turn your kitchen waste into black gold for your garden.