Friday was Earth Day.
With the deluge of bad news about global warming and biodiversity loss, it was hardly a day for celebration.
The human species — arrogantly seating itself at the top of the living period, for now — has really mucked things up.
So how do we start to make amends?
Yes, we must clamour for the big picture stuff like mandatory programmes for reducing carbon emissions. Political action is essential when the threat is existential.
But meantime our lives go on, and the most primal thing we do to survive is … eat.
So why not turn things around in our own lives by treating what we eat more preciously. Instead of wasting so much of it.
New Zealand households throw away 157,389 tonnes of food a year. That is equivalent to 271 jumbo jets of food that has to go somewhere to rot (creating methane), instead of being eaten. All of this food is worth about $1.17 billion each year. That amount of food could feed the population of Dunedin for nearly three years!
Here’s the top ten foods we New Zealanders waste …
One third of food produced globally is wasted; that is 1.3 billion tonnes of food that is never eaten.
We’ve had to create an entire industry of NGOs to tackle food waste … and god love ’em for the fantastic work they do squeezing some value out of this stream, helping to feed those still hungry.
But what could be easier than reducing our own personal food waste?! Is that little bit of personal responsibility too much to expect of ourselves?
Visit this website — Love Food Hate Waste — if you interested in taking this small step for the planet. Make it a family affair.
Happy Earth Day!