Food waste a problem?

Growing up in an Asian family, I've been told since I was a child not to leave any food on my plate after meals or my husband will have a less than perfect complexion. I guess that was the way my parents taught me not to waste food, it also trained me to be less picky with my food. Unfortunately that may not be true for all. Especially in developed nations like Singapore, where food scarcity is the least of our worries. Furthermore, all Singaporeans being "kiasu" loves cheap food and sales. There is a tendency to overbuy and order more than what we can finish when food is cheap. 

As such, most people tend to take for granted the amount of food we have, and not think twice about throwing away any leftover food. Furthermore, in certain asian cultures, it is considered rude to finish everything on the plate as it indicates that the host hasn't provided sufficient food.

Unknown to most, food waste in Singapore is very real. In 2012, about 0.618 million tonnes of food were thrown away and only 12% was recycled. This means, on average, each person in Singapore generated about 116kg of food waste a year (NCCS Enewsletter 2013).  As seen the the graph below, our rate of recycling food has not been improving much over the years while total food waste output has increased significantly.


Image taken from http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/recycling-foodwaste-yet-catch-singapore

The amount of food waste generated in Singapore has increased by about 48% over the past decade and is expected to rise further ( NEA 2015). The National Environment Agency (NEA) said that besides population growth, a rise in tourist arrivals and increasing affluence had contributed to the problem. The ease of accessibility to food and increased food variety could also have worsened the wastage.


Infographic taken from FoodBank SG.



Infographic by Makan Mantra on the statistics of food waste in 2011.

This problem has permeated every link of the supply chain. From households, to restaurants, to hawker centres. Food is wasted when there is improper storage or handling, when edible food. is thrown away, when there are leftovers from cooking, or when we cannot finish our food. Furthermore, food waste contributes to about 10% of total solid waste each year in Singapore.This is a huge problem as food waste cause not only economic issues but environmental ones as well. Let me briefly go through some.

The economic issues that stem from food wastage are rather obvious. Besides the resources wasted in food production, transportation and packaging, even more cost is incurred to dispose of the unconsumed food. One example is the cost of fuel or energy to incinerate the food waste.

Next, the environmental issues. Again, unknown to most, food wastage actually contributes to climate change. This is because the production of food consumes vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. Moreover, the fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Another cost is the landspace used to contain all the incinerated food waste like Pulau Semakau in Singapore.

In other countries where they do not incinerate leftover food, it decomposes and emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Globally, it creates 3.3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, about 7 percent of the total emissions, according to the report.

The United Nations agency points out that methane gas from the world’s landfills are surpassed in emissions by only China and the United States. This should be enough to call for some action to be taken to curb this problem. Moreover, this problem can be relatively easy to solve.

“Seven percent is not the largest contributor of greenhouse gasses, but it’s not an insignificant amount,” said Helen Mountford, the director of economics at the World Resources Institute.

Mountford also made another statement which I agree fully with -"Reducing food waste is one area where we can make a difference most easily." I mean, it literally starts with your personal everyday choices. How much to buy? What to buy? The solutions are really almost as simple as that.

Sadly, there is also a large ethical dimension to food waste since a large part of the world’s population is starving (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, 2010). This may be attributed to inequity in distribution of food as well. As the much used phrase goes - "think about the starving children in Africa when you waste food!" In my opinion, however, the problem of distribution is a intricate one and difficult to pinpoint a culprit and find a solution.

References:

FACTSHEET ON FOOD WASTE MANAGEMENT. (2015, March 11). Retrieved August 31, 2015, from http://www.nea.gov.sg/docs/default-source/corporate/COS-2015/cos-2015-media-factsheet---food-waste.pdf?sfvrsn=0

NCCS ENEWSLETTER. (2013) Curbing Food Wastage in Singapore [Online] Available from: http://www.nccs.gov.sg/climatechallenge/issue05/ask-dr-green.html 

Nixon, R. (2015, February 26). Food Waste Is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says. The New York Times, p. A18. Retrieved September 01, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/us/food-waste-is-becoming-serious-economic-and-environmental-issue-report-says.html?_r=1

The state of food insecurity in the world, 2010: Addressing food insecurity in protracted crises. (2010). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations