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18/12/09
·
There are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world, but the approximately
40 million tonnes of food wasted by US households, retailers and food services
each year would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every one of them.
· The irrigation water used globally to grow food
that is wasted would be enough for the domestic needs (at 200 litres per
person per day) of 9 billion people - the number expected on the planet
by 2050.
· If we planted trees on land currently used to
grow unnecessary surplus and wasted food, this would offset a theoretical
maximum of 100% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
· 10% of rich countries’ greenhouse gas emissions
come from growing food that is never eaten.
· The UK, US and Europe have nearly twice as much
food as is required by the nutritional needs of their populations. Up to
half the entire food supply is wasted between the farm and the fork. If
crops wastefully fed to livestock are included, European countries have
more than three times more food than they need, while the US has around
four times more food than is needed, and up to three-quarters of the nutritional
value is lost before it reaches people’s mouths.
· UK Households waste 25% of all the food they buy.
· All the world’s nearly one billion hungry
people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the
food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.
· A third of the world’s entire food supply
could be saved by reducing waste – or enough to feed 3 billion people;
and this would still leave enough surplus for countries to provide their
populations with 130 per cent of their nutritional requirements.
· Between 2 and 500 times more carbon dioxide can
be saved by feeding food waste to pigs rather than sending it for anaerobic
digestion (the UK government’s preferred option). But under European
laws feeding food waste to pigs is banned. In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,
by contrast, it is mandatory to feed some food waste to pigs.
· 2.3 million tonnes of fish discarded in the North
Atlantic and the North Sea each year; 40 to 60% of all fish caught in Europe
are discarded – either because they are the wrong size, species, or
because of the ill-governed European quota system.
· An estimated 20 to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables
rejected even before they reach the shops – mostly because they do
not match the supermarkets’ excessively strict cosmetic standards.
· 8.3 million hectares of land required to produce
just the meat and dairy products wasted in UK homes and in US homes, shops
and restaurants. That is 7 times the amount of Amazon rainforest destroyed
in Brazil in one year, largely for cattle grazing and soy production to
export for livestock feed.
· The bread and other cereal products thrown away
in UK households alone would have been enough to lift 30 million of the
world’s hungry people out of malnourishment
· 4600 kilocalories per day of food are harvested
for every person on the planet; of these, only around 2000 on average are
eaten – more than half of it is lost on the way.
· 4 million people in the UK, 43 million in the
EU and around 35 million in the US suffer from food poverty.
· 24 to 35% of school lunches end up in the bin.
· An estimated 20 million tonnes of food wasted
in Britain from the plough to the plate