Food waste prevention: From concept to practice

World Congress and Expo on Recycling

July 20-22, 2015 Barcelona, Spain

Katia Lasaridi

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Environ Anal Toxicol

Abstract :

It is roughly estimated that in the EU, over 90 million tonnes of food or 180 kg per person are wasted every year. Since significant resources are required throughout the lifecycle of food chain, food wastage becomes a waste of valuable resources with obvious economic, environmental and ethical implications. The EU has recently decided to change this unacceptable situation by putting forward a proposal for Member States to develop national food waste reduction strategies oriented to reduce 30% of their food waste by 2050. This paper presents an overview of the food waste problem and reviews initiatives and social innovations for food waste reduction in different countries. Finally, the paper presents the results of a research on food waste generated by households in Greece carried out within the EU LIFE+ WASP Tool project, to our knowledge, the first of its kind in Greece. It is indicated that Greek households generate approximately 100 kg of food waste per person annually of which approximately 30 kg per person are avoidable. Results indicate that people in Greece have positive attitudes towards food waste prevention; their habits, driven to a large extent by the economic crisis are close to the good practices suggested by literature for reducing food waste.