Abstract
In European and Asian countries, the largest and increasing
part of food is wasted at the consumer
level. This issue has gained
considerable public and
government attention in the past decades, to curtail the wastage
of food at all the stages, specifically retail chains and consumer level. By the
time large number
of initiatives executed
by different stakeholders such as policy makers, retailers
of France, and NGOs of Denmark and research projects that have and are
exploring the issue. Furthermore, the European
Parliament has called for 2014 to be the ‘year against food waste’. It is
well known reason
that consumers are
avoiding distorted food and
foods which are
about to expire,
to the best
before date, in the choice situation of food safety
concerns and more
reasons are behind
this is the
lack of storage facilities, family
practices about meals
like choices and more
interest in junk
food that the prepared food at home this influences the
quantity of food waste created in the household.
Tamar Makov et al., “Social and environmental analysis of food waste abatement
via the peer-to-peer sharing economy”. Nature
Communications, No. 11 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14899-5 [available on the Internet at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14899-5.pdf (last accessed on 16 March 2020)].
Abstract
Reducing food waste is widely recognized as critical for
improving resource efficiency and meeting the nutritional demand of a growing
human population. Here we explore whether the sharing economy can provide
meaningful assistance to reducing food waste in a relatively low-impact and
environmentally-sound way. Analyzing 170,000 postings on a popular peer-to-peer
food-sharing app, we find that over 19 months, 90t of food waste with an
equivalent retail value of £0.7 million were collected by secondary consumers
and diverted from disposal. An environmental analysis focused on Greater London
reveals that these exchanges were responsible for avoiding emission of 87–156t
of CO2eq. Our results indicate that most exchanges were among users associated
with lower income yet higher levels of education. These findings, together with
the high collection rates (60% on average) suggest that the sharing economy may
offer powerful means for improving resource efficiency and reducing food waste.
Wolfgang Britz et al., “Can Food Waste Reduction in Europe Help to Increase Food
Availability and Reduce Pressure on Natural Resources Globally?”. Discussion Paper 2020:1, Institute for
Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn (Forthcoming in German Journal of Agricultural Economics)
(2020) 40 pp. [available on the Internet
at https://app.box.com/s/sj1x48hhboa7g4m612a9x4qbk7nt21pf (last
accessed on 15 February 2020)].
Abstract
In recent years, reducing food waste and loss has become a
policy priority in the European Union, but little is known about impacts of
related measures in the EU and beyond. This study informs the debate on food
waste reduction through a quantitative analysis. It considers adjustment costs
for reducing food waste in food processing industries and impacts on food
availability, pressure on land and water, and other environmental consequences. The results suggest that the leakage effects
of global trade
may offset almost all
benefits of food
waste reduction in
the EU. We thus conclude that costly efforts to
reduce food waste in the EU cannot be motivated by larger contributions to
global food availability and environmental benefits. This highlights the need
for global coordination of such policies and/or more targeted actions in the EU
which focus on specific production chains, where losses can be reduced and
environmental gains obtained at a relatively low cost.
A
