Wasted food is wasted water, put it simple...
By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Unless you have been living on Mars or Jupiter for the last couple of years you will have heard of the astounding carbon and water footprint of waste food, and some research even suggests that half of all food produced worldwide goes uneaten!
Just in case you weren't quite convinced that waste food is a real problem with real consequences, however, a new study is highlighting a somewhat less talked about consequence of discarded food – the waste of water used to grow it. In fact, if researchers are to be believed, uneaten food accounts for more waste water than we use for washing and drinking combined, and that is a lot of water.
The new report from the UK government's Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) outlines the water and carbon impacts associated with waste food. While the economic impacts of wasted food have long been known, and problems with methane emissions and leaching from landfills are hardly new, it is that more emphasis should be placed on the hidden costs of all those nutrients going to landfill.
This new research shows that we throw away, on average, twice as much water per year in the form of uneaten food as we use for washing and drinking. What is worse, increasing amounts of our food comes from countries where water is scarce, meaning the food we discard has a huge hidden impact on the depletion of valuable water resources across the world.
Here we should also consider as to whether it is ethical to actually have food grown for us in countries that have a constant shortage of water, such as organic French beans – a crop that needs lots of water – grown in Kenya – a country that has constant water shortages. The Kenyans, by the way, do not eat those beans; they are just grown for export to the UK and Europe.
According to the first comprehensive study into the impact of the "embedded water" in the UK's food waste on world water supplies, more than a 5% of the water used by the UK is thrown away in the form of uneaten food.
Besides reemphasizing the need to tackle waste by both promoting composting and/or organic waste-to-energy solutions, and maybe even wasting less food in the first place (am I a little too optimistic here), framing the problem in these terms can serve as a reminder to all of us, once again, that no sustainability issue can be tackled in isolation.
Yes, we need to stop waste food on our farms, in our warehouses, in our stores, our businesses and institutions, and in our homes. But we also need to tackle the environmental footprint of how that food was grown in the process. And that, in my opinion, also means where it is grown and we must get away, as I have already said, of having stuff grown for us in countries such as Kenya; food which the Kenyans do not eat.
We deprive them of growing space for their food crops by allowing this practice of growers and supermarkets to go on. Having Kenyan produce on the shelves is one thing if it is food that the people there themselves would eat and we take as “exotic” vegetables and fruit but to have stuff grown there that no one in that country – and Kenya is but one example – would eat and which is just produced for our markets is wrong, plain and simple.
Only a total change in the approach of food production will really lead to a change and to real sustainability. Local food for local people...
© 2011
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