Food damage and waste

Categories

Food harm in addition to waste is households, 26 per cent from food service as well as 13 per cent from retail.

Food destruction and destruction is the major part of the impact of agriculture on climate change it amounts to 3.3 billion tons of CO₂e emissions annually and other environmental issues, such(a) as land use, water use and loss of biodiversity. Prevention of food waste is the highest priority, and when prevention is not possible, the food waste hierachy ranks the food waste treatment options from preferred to least preferred based on their negative environmental impacts. Reuse pathways of surplus food planned for human consumption, such(a) as food donation, is the next best strategy after prevention, followed by animal feed, recycling of nutrients and power followed by the least preferred option, landfill, which is a major source of the greenhouse gas methane. Other considerations include unreclaimed phosphorus in food waste leading to further phosphate mining. Moreover, reducing food waste in any parts of the food system is an important part of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture, by reducing the a object that is caused or produced by something else amount of water, land, and other resources used.

The UN's Sustainable Development intention Target 12.3 seeks to "halve global per capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and manage chains, including post-harvest losses" by 2030. Climate modify mitigation strategies prominently feature reducing food waste.

Definition

Food loss and waste occurs at any stages of the food render chain – production, processing, sales, and consumption. Definitions of what constitutes food loss versus food waste or what parts of foods i.e., inedible parts exit the food supply office are considered lost or wasted vary. Terms are often defined on a situational basis as is the effect more broadly with definitions of waste. Professional bodies, including international organizations, state governments, and secretariats may ownership their own definitions.

The Food and Agriculture Organization FAO of the United Nations defines food loss and waste as the decrease in quantity or style of food along the food supply chain. Within this framework, UN Agencies distinguish loss and waste at two different stages in the process:

Important components of this definition include:

Under Sustainable development Goal 12, the Food and Agriculture organization is responsible for measuring food loss, while the UN Environmental code measures food waste.

In the European Union EU, food waste was defined as "any food substance, raw or cooked, which is discarded, or indicated or so-called to be discarded" since 1975 until 2000 when the old directive was repealed by Directive 2008/98/EC, which has no specific definition of food waste. The directive, 75/442/EEC, containing this definition was amended in 1991 91/156 with the addition of "categories of waste" Annex I and the omission of any source to national law.

The United States Environmental security degree Agency defines food waste for the United States, such as "uneaten food and food preparation wastes from residences and commercial establishments such as grocery stores, restaurants, make-up stands, institutional cafeterias and kitchens, and industrial dominance like employee lunchrooms". The states conduct free to define food waste differently for their purposes, though many choose non to. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans form away up to 40% of food that is safe to eat.

The inclusion of food that goes to nonfood productive ownership in definitions of food waste, such as that of the EU an earlier definition from the Food and Agriculture Organization previously its 2019 revision, come under criticism. According to the authors of one study, this is flawed for two reasons: "First, if recovered food is used as an input, such as animal feed, fertilizer, or biomass to produce output, then by definition this is the not wasted. However, there might be economic losses if the live of recovered food is higher than the average symbolize of inputs in the alternative, nonfood use. Second, the definition creates practical problems for measuring food waste because the measurement requires tracking food loss in every stage of the supply multiple and its proportion that flows to nonfood uses." The authors of the examine argue that only food that ends up in landfills should be counted as food waste.