Transcript Food Wastage & Hunger

Food Wastage & Hunger
In the World Today:
• We produce enough food to feed everyone
BUT
1 in 7 are facing starvation.
• 1 in 3 kilograms of food produced goes to
waste.
Hunger
• We don’t think of it as being a problem in
Australia
BUT, each year in Australia;
• 1 in 10 people in require food relief
2 million people
Half of those are children
87.5% of people think it is important to
tackle hunger in Australia
Do you?
Who Needs Food Relief?
• 105,000
people are currently homeless
• 2.2 million
Australians live in poverty
• 10.9%
of children live in poverty
• 1 in 4
pensioners live in or close to poverty
Australia: the lucky country?
• We produce enough food to feed 60 million
people annually.
• We are a food secure nation, however, over
5% of Australians experience personal food
insecurity
Factors that contribute
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Financial stress
Unemployment
Illness
Minimal access to transport
Lack of education about food and nutrition
Geographical isolation
Homelessness
Food Insecurity & Health
• Only 10% of Australians consume enough
vegetables, living on a tight budget makes this
more challenging
• Your risk of obesity is 20%-40% higher if you
have an insecure food supply.
• Disadvantaged communities have up to 2.5
times the exposure to fast food outlets.
What is Food Waste?
• 47% of waste in landfill is food & green organic waste.
• Food waste results from preparing and cooking food.
• It is the food we throw in the bin, we feed to our pets
or toss in the compost or worm farm.
• It's the food we bought to eat but then threw away.
Food Waste
There are two types of food waste: 'avoidable' and
'unavoidable' food waste.
• Avoidable: includes food that:
– gets wasted because we buy more than we need
– is out of date before we use it
– gets wasted because we cook more than we need.
• Unavoidable: food waste that can not usually be eaten.
It is the food waste we can not really do anything
further with apart from composting it or putting it in
the bin.
e.g. pineapple skins, tea bags and fruit and vegetable
peelings.
Positive News
Since 2005, Second Bite’s fresh food rescue has
ensured:
• Food waste is sent to farms to feed animals
instead of going to landfill
• Over 2,000,000kgs of fresh food redistributed,
saving 168 million litres of water
• Saving 2.7million kilograms of Carbon Dioxide
= taking 594 cars off the road for a year.
Why is food wasted?
Brainstorm
Food waste in Australian landfills is the second
largest source of methane.
Food Waste and the Environment
Every kilogram of food that ends up in landfill:
• Emits harmful gas
• Wastes resources required to grow and
transport food
• Pollutes waterways
Dumping a kilogram of beef means wasting the 50,000
litres of water used in its production.
Throwing out a kilo of white rice will waste 2,385 litres.
If less food were wasted, less land, water and
energy would be needed across the entire
value chain.
Why is food wasted?
Consumers demand perfection:
Nearly a third of the crop
is graded out because
they’re too small or they
have minor blemishes.
In Queensland, research
revealed that 60,000
tonnes of bananas don’t
even make it past the
farm gate every year.
Food Wastage in Each State
What can YOU do to reduce YOUR
food waste at home?
What can YOU do to reduce YOUR
food waste at home?
• Preserve foods: create meals that can be
frozen, make jams, sauces & pickles etc
• Don’t buy more than you need: plan meals,
minimise packaging, write shopping lists.
• Get a vegie patch, compost or worm farm.
• Educate yourself
• Support businesses that participate in foodrescue programs (eg. Foodbank, Second Bite).