According to the United Nations the annual economic losses resulting from the waste hover around the 750 billion dollar mark.
Every year, one third of the food produced throughout the world is thrown out.
According to the United Nations the annual economic losses resulting from the waste hover around the 750 billion dollar mark.
The 1.3 billion tons of trash the wasted food amasses to makes it the third largest source of greenhouse gasses. In carbon footprint terms, that translates to 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
In their report on the relationship between food waste and the environment, the United Nations also contextualized the global impact of discarding edibles.
For example, the amount of water used to make the tossed foodstuffs is the equivalent of the annual flow of Europe’s longest river, the Volga.
28 percent of the land devoted to agriculture produces crops that are ultimately disposed of.
Those are just a few of the highlights.
The findings prompted the Director-General of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to announce “All of us…must make changes at every link of the human food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place.”
In conjunction with the report, the department has made available publications that advise on ways to implement better practices.
