Food Waste – 4 Ways in Which I’d Tackle the Problem
As a self-confessed climate activist, with a keen interest in environmental sustainability, there are a number of issues I find myself becoming increasingly worried about. Food waste is one of them.
It baffles me, that one minute I can be browsing the web and coming across an appeal from a charity in a third-world country asking for donations because the locals are literally starving to death, yet the next minute I can come across some YouTuber choking down enough calories in one meal to feed an entire person in a week. Put simply, we’re consuming too much food, and consequently, too much is also being wasted.
With climate change at the forefront of everybody’s minds nowadays, food waste is a huge contributing factor that needs addressing sooner rather than later.
While I’m in no way an expert, I thought today, I’d share my thoughts on how I’d tackle the global problem that is food waste. Here are just 4 examples.
Encourage Composting
One of the main reasons why food waste is considered to be so bad for the environment is the fact that, once it reaches landfill, it just sits and rots. As it rots, it releases harmful greenhouse gases and other emissions, such as methane, that contribute towards global warming.
Rather than having food waste going straight into the trash, I’d instead encourage people to compost. Composting basically involves you taking suitable food waste high in nutrients, I.E fruits and vegetables, and leaving it to rot down and decay naturally, with the help of bugs and insects.
Composted food has plenty of oxygen and airflow and can therefore decompose slowly and naturally. It also breaks down into highly nutritious substrate that can be used as a growing medium in your garden.
Use Food Waste as Food
Recently, I was reading an article about how a plant in China was using food waste to feed cockroaches of all things.
It may sound pretty gross to some of you, but I thought it was great because it means that the waste food has a use, rather than simply going to landfill to produce methane.
But wait, it gets better, because the cockroaches themselves can then be used as nutritious food for livestock, fish, and other creatures. I think this is a great idea and it’s something I’d encourage more.
I know in Scotland, malted barley, once it has been used to make whisky, is often provided to local farms where it can be used to feed livestock. This means nothing is wasted, it means the animals eat more nutritious meals, and it helps to reduce carbon footprints as well.
Utilize Waste More Creatively
The more I read about how other countries are doing their part to tackle food waste, the more invested I become. It's something that I would definitely push if I had my say.
In the United Kingdom for example, more and more places are finding ingenious ways of using leftovers. Their pubs, for example, are using leftover beer to make delicious dishes such as Welsh Rarebit. Some are even using leftover bread from local bakeries to brew their own beer.
Highly acidic foods such as citrus fruits are also being used to produce vinegar and cleaning products with anti-bacterial properties. This is beneficial because it means that the fruits don’t go to landfill, plus it provides a safer, healthier, natural cleaning product which is kinder to the atmosphere and environment. If a slightly acidic vinegar-based cleaning solution found its way into local water sources, the damage would be minimal. If a bleach-based solution found its way in however, the effects on the local eco-system would be devastating.
Meal Planning
One of the main reasons why food gets thrown into the trash is because it’s purchased from the grocery store, forgotten about, and is left to expire.
Planning your meals for the week would help to considerably cut back on the amount of food that goes into the trash. If you plan your meals for the week, you’ll know exactly which ingredients to buy, and how many. You’d have no excess left over which means there would be a much lower risk of the food being left to expire.
