Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
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Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#2This guy [1] made it across the US on a bike with no cash by simply dumpster-diving and eating nearly fresh fruits and veggies thrown away by grocery stores. Here [2] he is dumpster-diving in San Diego. It's amazing how much foods gets wasted.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7QO-4NjgjQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Gn_T1zQFc
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#3Too long of a read for me. Yet I do have an opinion :)
In capitalism a business is allowed to throw out what it wants; we have seen many products simply destroy in order not "destroy the market".
But capitalism is wrong --IMHO-- and wasting resources I deem sinful. We should try to avoid wasting resources, and we can. Simply put some laws in place that "tax" wasting resources to the extend that businesses become waste-averse.
As for individuals, this is harder, I'd say that a mentality shift is needed. Probably the same mentality shift needed for the afore mentioned laws to be passed. But believe that we can inspire each other to live in a less wasteful way, I believe we have been doing this already for 100s of years.
p.s.: Do you want to know what is probably the most wasteful behavior of mankind? Watch the Cowspiracy documentary.
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#4Food waste = Energy. Someone is going to make a nice chunk of change on this if they can solve the logistics problems associated with waste food. WISErg (https://wiserg.com) is a promising candidate.
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#5This guy [1] made it across the US on a bike with no cash by simply dumpster-diving and eating nearly fresh fruits and veggies thrown away by grocery stores. Here [2] he is dumpster-diving in San Diego. It's amazing how much foods gets wasted. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7QO-4NjgjQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Gn_T1zQFc
I'm no germaphobe but I'm shocked that he went into the dumpster without shoes and just ate an apple straight from the garbage bin!
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#6Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food.
Bigger problem is eating out (restaurants, fast food) where 90% of money is wasted. Or buying expensive ingredients like meat or very processed foods. 10 times more food can be bought if choosing wisely.
I pay maybe 4$-5$/day for food and I routinely throw away half. That's 2$/day wasted. But eating at restaurant wastes so much more.
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#7Food waste = Energy. Someone is going to make a nice chunk of change on this if they can solve the logistics problems associated with waste food. WISErg ( https://wiserg.com ) is a promising candidate.
Given that producers, distributors and consumers will also be happy to capture savings, how much of the savings will be captured by a fourth party?
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#8Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. Bigger problem is eating out (restaurants, fast food) where 90% of money is wasted. Or buying expensive ingredients like meat or very processed foods. 10 times more food can be bought if choosing wisely. I pay maybe 4$-5$/day for food and I routinely throw away half. That's 2$/day wasted. But eating at restaurant wastes so m…
> very processed foods
That's not really accurate though. Half the point of heavily-processed foods is that they can use non-aesthetic parts of the animal or plant to produce edible food.
- Mechanically-processed chicken is made out of the parts of a chicken that you could never sell as beautiful chicken breasts
- Baby carrots are carrots that are too ugly to sell
- Fillers like corn syrup and soybean oil are calorically incredibly cheap to produce, and very efficient use of cropland.
More accurately, it's organic and locally-grown foods that waste the most cropland by being low-density (and are thus more expensive).
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#9It's nice (for a European) to read an article with metric measurements. But:
> "Our family of four managed to get our weekly organic waste below the five-kilogram mark, ... This works out to about 250 grams per week for each family member"
Isn't that 1250 grams per week per person?
Re: Why we throw away more than 6M tonnes of groceries every year (2015)
#10Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. Bigger problem is eating out (restaurants, fast food) where 90% of money is wasted. Or buying expensive ingredients like meat or very processed foods. 10 times more food can be bought if choosing wisely. I pay maybe 4$-5$/day for food and I routinely throw away half. That's 2$/day wasted. But eating at restaurant wastes so m…
> very processed foods That's not really accurate though. Half the point of heavily-processed foods is that they can use non-aesthetic parts of the animal or plant to produce edible food. - Mechanically-processed chicken is made out of the parts of a chicken that you could never sell as beautiful chicken breasts - Baby carrots are carrots that are too ugly to sell - Fillers like corn syrup and soybean oil are caloric…
Yes, of course. I've meant prepackaged expensive meals.