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Kuraray Europe GmbH Sustainability Blog Chuck it? Please don’t!
Do you have any questions,
need technical support or
would like to place an order?
It may seem hard to believe, but every day large quantities of food are thrown away or lost, while an estimated 733 million people around the world go hungry. Over a year, a gigantic 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted: that’s about a third of the world’s total food production — a problem that concerns us all and needs to be addressed worldwide. Every year, on September 29, the United Nations draws attention to this on the International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste.
There are many reasons for food waste. Some food is spoilt during production or is rejected because it fails to meet aesthetic standards. Other causes are damage during transit and losses that occur between harvesting and retailing. Businesses, the catering sector and consumers throw away a good deal of food because it’s stored incorrectly or the best-before date has expired. Planning and shopping to meet people’s exact needs isn’t always easy – either for commercial businesses or for private households. And that increases the amount of waste.
Clearly, how we handle food raises ethical questions. Besides, it’s ecologically damaging. Food loss and food waste cause between 8 and 10 percent of greenhouse gases and are a methane hotspot. Food rotting on landfills releases this toxic gas and bonds far more heat than carbon dioxide. As well as being unsustainable, it makes no economic sense to use time, effort, money and other resources such as water and energy to produce food that is ultimately wasted. In short: food waste is bad for people and the environment. It contributes to climate change, the destruction of nature and environmental pollution. For all these reasons, the United Nations have agreed to halve global per capita food waste by the retail sector and consumers by 2030 and to reduce losses in food production and the supply chain. The European Union is also preparing stricter regulations to reduce food waste. It plans to cut food waste by at least 20 percent during production and processing and by at least 40 percent in the retail and catering sectors and private households – based on the average for the period 2020 to 2022.
The aims are ambitious and it isn’t easy to alter habits, including our habits as consumers. One important step is doubtless for us to pay greater attention to food. For example, by planning our grocery shopping more carefully, extending the shelf-life of food by storing it properly and using up left-overs – just like our grandparents used to. In that way, we can make a clear contribution to avoiding food waste – and save money at the same time!
Naturally, industry also needs to play its part in handling food responsibly. It needs to find innovative methods that are both functional and sustainable. Here too, climate change plays a part. Higher seasonal temperatures, extreme heat and periods of drought make storing, processing, transporting and selling food safely more difficult. Modern packaging can help solve this: by protecting food and extending its shelf-life. By doing that, it can play a part in reducing food waste. At the same time, such packaging is designed to minimize environmental harm. Kuraray has explicitly set itself the goal of making a contribution to reducing food loss and offers suitable products and technologies.
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