1
The food wastage phenomena
An overview of the current situation in three countries:
France, Finland Taiwan
Alex Phil, Fangzhou Li, Fanny Augis, Marjo Patama, Omar Mouhdi, Rémi Delabruyère, Tuure
Parviainen
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Abstract
Food wastage results in one third of the global food supply being lost and wasted throughout the
global food supply chain. It is a relevant issue both in developed and developing countries and a
major contributor to global food insecurity. In order to better understand the phenomena of food
wastage, we did an overview of the current situation in three geographical areas of interest; we
chose Finland, France and Taiwan. We decided to further divide the food wastage phenomena into
food losses, food waste, environmental impacts and waste utilization. This was done in order to
overview food wastage on different levels of the food supply chain, assess its environmental
impacts and the possibilities of using waste as a resource. The discussion part then presents the
questions and findings that rose during the overview writing and discuss issues with the relevant
literature. We found that the differences between our chosen countries were relatively small, and
that the factors thought to affect food wastage were different than expected. There is a big
difference in the way food waste is perceived in Taiwan and in the EU. In the EU food waste is
seen as an ethical and environmental issue while in Taiwan it is seen as practical problem. Tackling
the issue of food wastage promises a possibility of saving a large amounts of natural resources and
lessening the environmental impact of human activity. The future of waste utilization also shows
great potential in terms of economical possibilities and technical advances, but it might also present
a problem in its own as it clashes with the ideal of preventing food waste if it turns out to be a
valuable resource. Combining the efficient prevention and high value utilization would to our
knowledge be the best way to deal with the food wastage, but currently disposal is still the major
way to deal with the food waste in the comparison.
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Table of Contents
The food wastage phenomena ......................................................................................................... 1
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 4
Food loss ................................................................................................................................... 10
Definition of food loss ........................................................................................................... 10
Gross production.................................................................................................................... 10
Crop losses ............................................................................................................................. 11
Transportation ........................................................................................................................ 11
Losses due to machines and food processing ........................................................................ 11
Biomachine, meat production ................................................................................................ 12
Supermarkets ......................................................................................................................... 12
Food waste................................................................................................................................. 13
Why is food wasted?.............................................................................................................. 13
Political reasons for food waste ............................................................................................. 13
Economical background of food waste ................................................................................. 15
Social and cultural background of food waste....................................................................... 17
Alternative movements .......................................................................................................... 18
Environmental impacts .............................................................................................................. 19
Greenhouse gas emissions of food waste .............................................................................. 19
Water footprint ...................................................................................................................... 20
Nitrogen footprint .................................................................................................................. 21
Utilization and management of food waste ............................................................................... 22
Situation in the EU (Finland and France) .............................................................................. 24
The situation in Taiwan ......................................................................................................... 25
The future of food waste ........................................................................................................ 27
Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 28
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 31
Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 31
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Introduction
Food insecurity is an increasing global issue, with around one billion malnourished individuals
globally (Kummu et al. 2012). A major contributor to the global food crisis is the wastage of food
that occurs in the global food supply chain (FSC). It is estimated to account for one third of the
global food supply in terms of weight (Lipinski et al. 2013). In terms of energy this food accounts
for approximately a quarter of the global food supply in kilocalories (1,46 x 1015 kcal/year).
Assuming a 2100 kcal/cap/day food supply, this food wastage in amount of kilocalories could feed
around 1,9 billion human individuals (Kummu et al. 2012). With such a large quantity of the
global food supply being lost or wasted, treating the issue of food wastage is being recognized as
an important method of addressing the global food security situation.
In order to understand the issue of food wastage, different perspectives have to be taken into
account, namely the social, environmental and economic sustainability (Papargyropoulou et al.
2014). In addition to assessing the global food wastage in terms of mass (weight) and energy
(kilocalories) food wastage should also be considered in terms of wasted resources and economical
loss. In terms of economic losses, the global food wastage was estimated to be worth 750 billion
USD in the year 2007 (FAO 2013). In the form of wasted natural resources, the global food
wastage is estimated to account for 24 % (27 m3/cap/year) of freshwater used in crop production,
23 % (31 x 10-3 ha/cap/year) of cropland area used and 23 % (4,3 kg/cap/year) of fertilizers used
globally (Kummu et al. 2012). In addition to the resources used for the production of wasted food,
agriculture is the source of approximately 22 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
(Papargyropoulou et al. 2014). Food that is lost or wasted also accounts for a part of the GHG
emission tied to agriculture. The lessening of food wastage could thus also be seen as an effective
method of conserving resources and lessening the environmental impact of human activity.
Food wastage occurs due to many different reasons and the term food wastage is thus often further
divided into food losses and food waste, in order to specify food wastage on different stages of the
FSC: “Food wastage refers to any food lost by deterioration or waste. Thus the term “wastage”
encompasses both food loss and food waste” (FAO 2013). Food loss and waste together
encompass: “the edible parts of plants and animals that are produced or harvested for human
consumption but that are not ultimately consumed by people” (Lipinski et al. 2013). The division
between food loss and food waste is done according to where the wastage occurs within the FSC,
as shown in Fig. 1 (HLPE 2014).
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Fig.1. Food losses and waste in the food supply chain (HLPE 2014).
Food loss by itself is defined as: “a decrease in mass (dry matter) or nutritional value (quality) of
food that was originally intended for human consumption” (FAO 2013). While food loss occurs
as:” the unintended result of an agricultural process or technical limitation in storage,
infrastructure, packaging, or marketing” (Lipinski et al. 2013). Thus food loss occurs in the preconsumer phase of the food supply chain, while food waste occurs during the consumer phase and
is influenced by a different set of variables: “Food waste refers to food appropriate for human
consumption being discarded, whether or not after it is kept beyond its expiry date or left to spoil.
Often this is because food has spoiled but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply due to
markets, or individual consumer shopping/eating habits” (FAO 2013).
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How food wastage occurs differs between areas globally. In developed countries food is mostly
wasted in the consumer phase of the FSC, while in developing countries food is lost mainly during
the pre-consumer phase of the FSC. Food wastage in developed countries is thus mainly tied to
issues of food waste while food wastage in developing countries occur mostly as food losses (FAO
2011).
In order to understand how the issue of food wastage can be tackled, many different variables have
to be taken into account. In addition to defining food wastage occurring on different levels of the
FSC, it is important to survey mechanisms and impacts of food wastage. Thus both research on
the impacts of food wastage and on methods of lessening it is done in order to better understand
the phenomena and to propose possible ways of lessening it. Papargyropoulou et al. (2014)
presents the food surplus and waste framework, seen in Fig. 2, as a way of identifying an effective
way of avoiding food wastage, by targeting food surplus and food waste.
Fig. 2. Food surplus and waste framework (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014).
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“The proposed framework interprets and applies the waste hierarchy in the context of food waste,
provides and prioritizes options for dealing with food surplus, avoidable and unavoidable food
waste. The most favorable options are presented first and are placed at the top of the framework,
with the least favorable options presented lower down the framework” (Papargyropoulou et al.
2014).
The food surplus and waste framework is then summarized into the food waste hierarchy that
orders the methods of lessening food waste from the most favorable option at the top of the
hierarchy to the least favorable option at the bottom of the hierarchy, as shown in Fig.3.
While the food waste hierarchy focuses on the waste and surplus aspect of the food wastage
phenomena, HLPE (2014) identifies different sources and forms of food loss and food waste along
with their impacts on different levels of society. HLPE (2014) separates “food quality losses and
waste” from food losses and food waste in mass, as seen in Fig. 4.
Taking into account food quality loss and waste allows one to consider processes that lessen the
nutritional value of food as mechanisms of food wastage. As mentioned earlier HLPE (2014)
assesses the economic, social and environmental impacts of food wastage, by dividing society and
the impact of food wastage into three different levels, as presented in Fig. 5.
Fig. 3. Food waste hierarchy (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014).
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Fig. 4. Definitions of food losses and food waste (HLPE 2014).
Fig. 5. Impacts of food loss and food waste on different levels of society (HLPE 2014).
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Fig. 6. “The food use-not-waste-hierarchy to minimize FLW” (HLPE 2014).
In contrast to the waste hierarchy presented by Papargyropoulou et al. (2014), HLPE (2014)
presents the “food use-not-waste hierarchy” for identifying ways of minimizing food wastage
through a food use prioritization, as seen Fig. 6
It is important to note that both the “food waste hierarchy” (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014) and the
“food use hierarchy” (HLPE 2014) identify prevention as the most favorable option while
identifying disposal as the least favorable option of all.
In order to better understand the food wastage phenomena we concluded that doing an overview
of the food wastage situation in a chosen area would be a good way of immersing ourselves in the
subject. Using the information we had of the global food wastage situation, along with the
background information we gathered on food wastage, we did an overview of a total of three
separate areas. The areas we chose to use were Finland, France and Taiwan. These areas were
chosen as areas of interest due to group member backgrounds. The overview was done with the
background information in mind and we want to take into consideration food wastage on different
levels of the food supply chain, the management of food related waste and the environmental
impacts associated with food wastage. The overview is thus divided into four parts as following:
food loss, food waste, environmental impacts and waste management. An overview of the current
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situation of each subtopic is done for each country, in order to form an overall picture of the food
wastage situation in each of the chosen areas. Findings and questions that arise during the
construction of the overview will then act as a base for the report discussion. By doing this
overview we hope to deepen our knowledge of the food wastage phenomena to better understand
both the issues that lie behind food wastage and the issues related to food wastage.
Food loss
Definition of food loss
The pre-consumer stage is actually what we can call the food loss, it refers to “food that spills,
spoils, incurs an abnormal reduction in quality such as bruising or wilting, or otherwise gets lost
before it reaches the consumer. Food loss is the unintended result of an agricultural process or
technical limitation in storage, infrastructure, packaging, or marketing” (Lipinski et al. 2013).
Taiwan’s Green National Income (2014) has classified agricultural waste into six types: crop
residue, fishery waste, forestry waste, livestock waste, market waste, and food processing waste.
So except in the case forestry waste, the other five types are all related to food loss.
Gross production
Concerning demography, France has a population of 67 million people and the agricultural area is
27,8 million hectares. The population of Finland is almost 5,5 million and due to the big area
dedicated to forestry, the agricultural area is barely 2,2 million hectares. Taiwan’s scale is in
between with 23 million inhabitants and a less than one million hectares of arable lands due to its
geography. There are a huge differences in arable land and therefore in the production as well; the
production in France is 67,5 million tons (MT) of cereals and 5,5 MT of meat. Finland produces
4,1 MT of cereals and 0,4 MT of meat (INSEE 2013). Because of its cultural differences, Taiwan
produces 1,7 MT of rice, 1,7 MT of wheat and 1,6 MT of meat (FAOSTAT 2013).
To make a comparison, the French production is almost one ton of cereals and 82 kg of meat per
capita; in Finland it is 0,75 ton of cereals and 72 kg of meat (FAOSTAT 2013). Taiwan is
characterized by an average meat production, 67 kg of meat per capita and a low production of
cereals: 148 kg per capita including the rice (50 %). From now on, to make a comparison, we are
scaling the numbers to 100 kg of wheat and 100 kg of meat. We will follow the amount of food
remaining and the amount of food lost during each step of the process.
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Crop losses
Here, we are only considering the crops losses after harvesting; we are not considering the losses
due to climatic issues before the harvesting season. Unfortunately, the data we found was a
European averages and we were not able to make differences between Finland and France however
the literature shows that the figures concerning the food loss are quite homogenous in Europe and
in wealthy countries. In Taiwan, crop residue amounted to approximately 2,0 million tons of all
the agricultural waste from 2001 to 2013 (Taiwan Green National Income 2014).
First of all, a part of the loss is due to machine inefficiency and is mostly unavoidable. Then we
have some avoidable losses because of late or non-harvested fields. It can be a scheduling issue
but sometimes the crops are voluntary left in the field not to disturb the market when the price
level is not satisfying. Another type of food loss is more linked quality especially with fruits and
vegetables; it’s the ugly or mismatching quality grade fruits. Meanwhile some losses are called
unavoidable; this one is one hundred per cent avoidable. (FNE 2010.)
In the end of the chain, there is the loss due to storage, which depends on the time that the seeds
or the fruits are stored. Those products can be exposed to diseases, fungi and pests. At the end of
this first step and without getting through any processing, we have already lost 21 % (Kummu
2012) of the production. What is important to consider is not only the amount of food, but also all
the inputs used to make it grow. Knowing that 1 kg of wheat needs 590 l of virtual water and 0,03
kg of nitrate and the production of 1 kg of fertilizer release 7,59 kg CO2-eq (IPCC 2013), we can
conclude that in those 21 kg of wheat, we are actually losing 12,4 m3 water and releasing 159 kg
of CO2-eq to the atmosphere. Here is the point that we have to remember in every single step, the
food loss is strongly bounded to the mean loss. The further we are going through the processing
chain, the more inputs are used and the losses are getting bigger.
Transportation
Going through the process, transportation is maybe a part that is causing the smallest part of food
loss. Concerning the meat, it’s around 0,1 % of the total food lost and for the cereals it’s almost
the same. (Averos et al. 2008.)
Losses due to machines and food processing
Actually in this phase, the losses are due essentially to the machine’s limits. The food industry has
started the optimization process a long time ago and now a day the processing efficiency is very
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high (FAO 2012). The loss is between 2 % for liquids and wheat for example and the maximum is
5 % for the fruits and the vegetables (FNE 2010). For example these losses are due to the peeling,
trimming and polishing process. The loss concerning the wheat and the meat are 2 and 2,5 %.
Taiwan instead produced 2,76 kt processing wastes in 2013 (Taiwan Green National Income
2014).
Biomachine, meat production
Nowadays we are eating more and more meat, in term of calories it’s not efficient at all. We are
using 4 calories to produce one chicken or pork calorie, 8 calories are used for 1 milk calorie and
finally to produce 1 calorie coming from lamb or beef we are using 12 calories (Colomb 1999).
The vegetal calories we are talking about were never dedicated to the human consumption however
arable lands, machines and fertilizer were used to make them grow. That’s the global loss due to
a piece of meat thrown to the garbage are so important. We should eat meat in a proper amount
and not letting the breeding system regulate itself in order to reduce significantly its environmental
impact (FAO 2006).
Supermarkets
Earlier we talked about the Ugly or mismatching grade fruits. This issue comes directly from the
supermarkets that are what the standards are going to be. To be clear, the taste and the nutritional
quality of these products are very good but they are presenting an esthetic default. This stage is
massively concerning the fruits and the vegetables. At this point it is understandable that there are
some major differences: France is a huge vegetables and fruits producer with 15 megatons
meanwhile Taiwan and Finland don’t have that much production. For example, there are some
established rules relating to the distribution chain: carrots that can’t be peeled in one motion, are
not allowed to be sold in the stores. This single rule excludes between 25 and 30 % of the carrots.
This part is used in precooked meals.
In Europe, the policies are alike and the major causes of food loss in the supermarkets are
inappropriate orders, issues during shelf storage, fluctuation of customers demand and also
throwing the products before their expiration date. We can reduce the amount of food lost in this
stage by being more careful during the transportation and the storage phases. Another thing to do
is to give the products close to their expiration date to NGO, this decision can be more efficient
when it’s supported by the government like in Belgium (Consoglobe 2013).
At the end of our process we have 75 kg of wheat and 95 kg of meat. Even if the meat loss is
smaller than the loss relating to the cereals: the environment impact is bigger because of all the
means used to produce it.
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Food waste
Why is food wasted?
In today’s society food waste is widespread and takes place on many different scales. In
households, schools and restaurants, wasting food has become a daily practice. However, food
waste also became a relevant issue both among consumers (and so society) and in politics
(Planetoscope 2012). Taking into account the huge amount of food wasting that occurs, European
projects like “Stop food waste” and country scale policy programs (like France that we will develop
later) have recently been put into motion in order to reduce the amount of food waste. Before
presenting these different programs it is important to consider the politics that to a degree allow
the food waste to occur. Food wasting is made up of a complex assembly of political, social and
economic factors which all contribute to the food waste phenomena. Explaining this assembly will
make up the first part of our food waste related case study.
Political reasons for food waste
Present political actions aimed at lessening food wasting were in most observed cases found to be
ineffective or even insufficient. According to one of the FAO’s reports (FAO 2013) 1/3 of the food
produced globally is wasted, which confirms the inefficiency of current political actions aimed at
lessening the wasting of food. Moreover, according to the FAO (2011), the role of food waste is
more important than role of food loss in Western countries: most food waste in western countries
occurs during distribution and as a consequence of consumer behavior. Therefore political action
towards food waste can be difficult to establish (Le Monde 2014), especially knowing that most
of the time food waste in supermarket is a consequence of the market law (increasing of the amount
of goods in order to obtain as much profit as possible in a given amount of time, and somehow
wasting food has also become profitable for the most important food industries) or constrain by
the strict health law (for example, laws which are similar in France and in Finland concerning these
topics) forbids companies to give food waste to people or employees, due to the risk of foodborne
pathogens). The food that is not consumed can’t be used as feed in animal breeding either, since
sanitary related crises like the mad cow disease in 1990 (Future Environment 2013). We can thus
deduce that policies encounter difficulties to be effective, because the food waste system is
complex and takes place on several different scales (country/household/individuals).
However this does not mean that policies have not been established. Many prevention programs
have been developed both in the European Union (European Commission 2015a) and on country
scale.
On the European scale, food wasting has become a relevant issue: “The European Commission is
taking the issue of tackling food waste very seriously”. According to the European Food
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Commission (2015a), addressing the issue of food waste is mainly seen as a way to save resources.
In 2014, the European Commission started to develop a program in order to reduce food wastage
on a large scale and more precisely reducing food wasting by at least 30 % by 2025. All sectors
tied to food consumption will be integrated in the plan, from factories to public services to homes.
The main way of working is to partner with the food industry and co-operation between the
different states. Many project have been thought of, for an example establishing a double use-by
date, a more important choice in the quantity of food proposed etc. Also additional alternatives to
recycle the food waste are considered. In addition to this program, an increase of awareness
towards food waste and prevention of it is a priority.
In France, the goals are quite similar than of the European Commission. An increase of the
government role in facing the food waste issue has been observed during recent years. Many
programs to raise awareness and also to prevent food waste have been developed these last years.
A new work group called “Waste prevention” was funded in 2012 with the aim of working on a
solution to reduce or avoid food waste (Ministère de l’écologie 2014). This work group gathers
various actors around the table (economics, politics, social, etc.) and also works on several
different scales (food industry/ household). At the end many proposition have been established,
for an example a less strict law (sanitary) for the people who want to give the food not consumed
to associations. Likewise other awareness campaigns have been established which encourage the
idea of not wasting food, or try to change consumer behavior (for an example the program “Eat 5
ugly vegetables or fruits per day”).
In Finland, prevention of food wasting is mainly lead by the Finnish organization Natural
Resources Institute Finland (LUKE 2014). Research groups also work in order to change consumer
behavior and raise awareness on food wasting. The group work consists of studying consumer
choice and the impacts of the choices made, in combination with studying food industry variables
in order to be able to propose and elaborate concrete and efficient solutions (LUKE 2014).
Likewise other policy projects to with the same aim have been created during the last years: from
the Nordic council minister for instance, the alliance of European Nordic countries established a
schedule to reduce food waste by donating and redistributing the food not consumed to low-income
people (Norden 2013).
In Taiwan, reduce food waste, is an issue which is became more important after the ‘80’s waste
crisis’ (that will be discussed further later) but also because of the special characteristics of Taiwan,
rapid population growth, geographic features (island, density of population etc.) which have
contributed to push them to act. In 2000 a food waste recycling program called Total Recycling of
Food Waste (TRF) was started by Taiwanese Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA). This
program is based on prevention but also on concrete actions in order to sustain the “zero-waste
policy” (Allen 2012). It includes awareness campaigns to make the people aware of the issues
surrounding food waste, and to teach some ‘good behavior’ as sorting the wastes for example. It
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also act in other scales such as townships, in 2009 for instance many of them in Taiwan (about
319) have benefited of a recycle food system.
Economical background of food waste
Food waste is not only tied to ethical issues and environmental impacts, it also represent a relative
economical loss and part of the economy, not only on a country or food industry scale but on a
household scale as well. Each year, the average amount of food wasted in the European Union is
about a 100 million tons (European Commission 2014), an amount that can increase according to
estimations, if nothing is done (126 million tons by 2020). According to the European
Commission, (European Commission 2014), people in Europe waste on average 20 % of the food
that they buy. But more than the food wasted, the losses are also economic and environmental.
Wasting food is also wasting time, workforce and money, at the global and local scale.
The economic agent’s responsibility occurs on different scales, but in this case we will focus on
the highest one. The market’s economy when applied to food implies fluctuation, the creation of
food waste, sometimes with product left harvested. The global market ruled by demand and supply,
entails strong price variations of a given product. This can lead to the increase of prices and in turn
to food riots in poor regions, but in the case of a strong decrease in the price it can lead to global
waste at the producer scale because it is more profitable for them to leave it on the field instead of
selling it for a lower price than the harvesting cost.
Food waste also impacts the purchase power of households. It occurs in a direct way: throwing
away a product equals lost money. But it also occurs in an indirect way: food waste occurring on
the shop scale is also paid for indirectly by the consumer via the increase of the prices which enable
the supermarket to stay profitable even if it throws away a lot of products. The economic impact
on the smallest scale (households) has a bigger impact on the poorest households than on the
richest, indeed the part of the income used for food in the household is higher for the poor
households than for the rich (Engel’s law).Consequently we can consider that food waste affects
(economically) the poorest households more than the rich households.
In this presentation we focused on three countries (Taiwan, France and Finland). These countries
have different characteristics and specificities with possible correlations between some of them
and the specific characteristics of these countries, as seen in (Table 1.). In France, food waste
represents 79 kg per capita and per year (ADEME 2014). In monetary loss it represents 430 euros
lost per capita per year. Each year, the amount of food waste is 1,2 millions of tons. According to
the Finnish research group MTT/LUKE, the food waste in Finland amounts to 130 000 tons each
year. On a household scale, food waste is estimated to be around 120–160 kg. Per capita this food
waste is estimated to be 23 kg and an economic loss of approximately 70 euros per capita. In
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Taiwan, according to the Taiwan people’s food bank association (2012) food waste accounts for
around 3 millions of tons of bio-waste per year or 121 kilos per capita per year.
Table 1. The amount of food waste in France, Finland and Taiwan. Total bio-waste includes also
the part of the food waste in MSW, which is estimated to be around 30 %. All calculations and
data are based on the statistical year of 2012, except for Finland as the most comprehensive
data was available for 2010 including sectors FI, RS, FSS, HH and FS. Taiwan’s values include
in pre-consumer phase parts that are used as feed (R.O.C 2010, Katajajuuri et al. 2014, OSF
2015 and ADEME 2015).
Country
Pre-consumer Stage
Househo
lds (HH)
Total
food
waste
(FS)
Total
biowaste
(BW)
Food industry (FI)
Retail
sector
(RS)
Food
service
sector
(FSS)
France
n.a.
2.3 Mton
1.5
Mton
1.2–1.8
Mton
5.0–
5.6
Mtons
~ 11
Mtons
France
per
capita
n.a.
38 kg
27 kg
20-30 kg
76–85
kg
~ 170
kg
Finland
75–140 million kg
65–75
million
kg
75–85
million
kg
120–160
million
kg
350–
460
million
kg
~ 0.8
Mtons
Finland
per
capita
22–30 kg
12–14 kg
14–16
kg
22–30
kg
62–86
kg
~ 150
kg
Taiwan
4.97 Mtons
830
million
kg
~ 1,5
Mton
~ 3.0
Mton
Taiwan
per
capita
220 kg
35 kg
~ 65
kg
~ 130
kg
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Social and cultural background of food waste
Our society is a society of abundance that consequently includes a ‘throw away mentality’ (Evans
2011). It means that normally a consumer can have all what they want and where they want,
depending mostly on the amount of monetary resources they have available. This desire of ‘all and
right now’ is both created by the market, the enterprise and advertisements for an example, and
followed by the market. This desire of variety, both in the fridge and in the shops, results in a lot
of food waste.
One example of the consumption society’s effect on food waste is the example of having a
‘barbecue’: when the weather is warm and sunny everyone likes to do a barbecue, and everyone
goes to the supermarket to buy meat. The problem here is that meat is a short-life product and the
weather is hard to anticipate in advance. Due to this, 2 weekends out of 4 in the month, food is
wasted because of bad weather. Supermarkets could buy a smaller amount of meat products, but
they often do not want to take the risk of not having enough supply to meet the demand of the
consumers. Running out of products could entail a degradation of the image of the supermarket
and thus supermarkets rather waste products than take the risk of not having enough supply.
The consumer’s expectations, which come not only from the consumer but indirectly from the
various form of marketing, are also strongly involved in the production of food waste (Evans 2011).
These expectations are often turned toward the aspects of the products, and the products have to fit
strict criteria to be sold. These criteria can be legal obligations, sometimes as calibers, but in most
of the time they are not regulated by a law but only by the consumers’ expectations.
Our ‘relationship’ with food has also affected and is still impacting the production of waste. In
developed countries we mainly belong to a generation who has never known food scarcity, in
contrast to others generations who knew the second world war for example, or in contrast with
people from other countries. It has deeply impacted our values concerning food as well as the
decrease of religious practices in the western countries, which also has contributed to the
degradation of the value of food.
Our way of life is also a cause for the waste of food, we have become mainly urban and we can
consider that it has also changed our approach to food. Because urban people live far away from
the place of production, the value of labor that a farmer gives to a product, tends to disappear in
urban areas. Our livelihoods are also involved in food waste for others reasons, the demand and
the need for fast food for an example, both in a restaurant and in a household, the success of
prepared meals for microwave illustrate that we need to eat fast and we are losing our know-how
about how to cook fresh product in an efficient way, and how to manage a good meal with what
we have instead of throwing it in the trash.
A lack of time is one of the main problems in the food waste issue, a lot of stakeholders including
retail shops and producers, prefer sometimes to throw food into the trash instead of keeping it and
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managing it. The research of speed and profitability is at all the scales a key feature of food waste
and losses.
Alternative movements
Even if the governments and policies programs are starting to be aware of the issue concerning
food waste, policies still remain insufficient or not effective at this time. However it does not mean
that the citizens do not act for themselves. People are mainly aware of the amount of food wasted,
and it raises many questions concerning environmental consequences, economic losses and ethical
sustainability. For instance a practice often called ‘Freeganism’ has been developed by citizens,
where they pick up the food from the dumpsters in supermarkets. This practice has been used by
more and more people during the lasts years and not only by low-income people (even if they
represent most of the people who practice this). This, in a way shows the increase of awareness to
face the issue of food waste in our countries. Furthermore this practice is not only used in Europe
but also widely around the world. Freeganism is mainly a mainstream practice now, which gathers
people denouncing our consumer societies (Hieu et al. 2014). Another movement, more specific
to France is ‘Gars’Pilleurs’ which is an association of people who aim to give in the street for
example the food that they pick up in supermarket dumpsters and by this ‘popularize’ the
freeganism practice (Les Gars’pilleurs 2014).
Other projects by the population and associations have been developed in order to reduce food
waste: for an example the increasing donation of food to food banks (mainly held by charitable
associations) with the aim to redistribute the food to low-income parts of the population. Many
food banks now exist in the European Union (FEBA 2015).
In addition we should note the increasing importance of social networks which also play a role:
some forums or internet platforms can be used to connect people: for example the Finnish
Facebook group called ‘Kallio kierrättää’ wherein people sell or give away things that they do not
need any more instead of wasting it. This can also include food among a wide range of things.
Therefore the increasing importance of social networks cannot be ignored. They can have a
significant role in food waste, or more precisely in the reducing of food waste.
These are some examples of ways to reduce and denounce food waste which emanates from the
citizens themselves.
In a nutshell, we conclude in this part that the wasting of food is a major issue and that a lot remains
to be done in order to lessen its impact. However we also demonstrated that the food waste issue
is starting to be integrated in politics with several programs, as mentioned previously, at a
supranational scale (European Union) as country scale (France and Finland). Lastly we also show
that some alternatives can be establish without policies program, but rather from the citizens
themselves and reflects somehow the increasing of awareness face to the huge amount of food
waste (Freeganism, food banks, citizen associations, etc.).
19
Environmental impacts
Food production requires a lot of natural resources such as water, nutrients and land (FAO 2013).
It also strains the environment, for example, by producing significant amounts of GHG emissions
and releasing excessive nutrients to watersheds, soils and atmosphere. The rising levels of GHGs
in the atmosphere are known to cause and accelerate the climate change which is causing severe
problems in our biosphere (European Commission 2015c). For example in China and USA, food
wastage is the third worst emitter of GHGs (FAO 2013). Also freshwater resources are increasingly
scarce and a subject to an accelerating pollution as well (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2011). Agricultural
production requires huge amounts of water being the main consumer of water resources around the
world, mainly due to irrigation. Water depletion and salinization are some of the main
environmental problems caused by irrigated agriculture (FAO 2013).
Intensified agriculture releases significant amounts of reactive nitrogen to the environment and
disrupts the natural nitrogen cycle (Grizzetti et al. 2013). Nitrogen acts as a nutrient and cause
eutrophication of water bodies (European Commission 2015b). Eutrophication enhances the
production of blue-green algae which leads to oxygen depletion and prevents the light penetration.
All these factors affect the natural flora and fauna and thus, reducing biodiversity. In Europe, food
waste contributes to about 12 % of the food production related nitrogen emissions to the
environment (Grizzetti et al. 2013).
Greenhouse gas emissions of food waste
Life cycle thinking is important when assessing the carbon footprint of food waste (FAO 2013).
The carbon footprint of food waste includes also all the GHG emissions that are emitted during the
food production phase. It’s expressed in kg CO2-eq including CH4 and N2O. According to FAO
(2013), the overall carbon footprint of food wastage is approximately 500 million tonnes CO2-eq
in Europe. It’s also high per capita and per year, almost 700 kg CO2-eq. In Europe, the wastage of
vegetables and meat has the highest carbon footprint per capita but cereals account for only a
couple of percent (3,2 %) of the total carbon footprint and food wastage. Another study (Katajajuuri
et al. 2012) suggests that the size of carbon footprint in EU-27 would be only 170 million tonnes
of CO2-eq, amounting to 3 % of total GHG emissions of this area.
In Finland, the carbon footprint of food waste is almost 1 % of total annual GHG emissions: 500
to 1000 million kg CO2-eq at the food chain level (Silvennoinen et al. 2012). In Finnish households,
the annual carbon footprint of waste is almost the same as the CO2 emissions of 100 000 cars.
Vegetables are discarded in large amounts but animal derived products like dairy, meat and cheese
have the highest carbon footprint. For example, the carbon footprint of discarded beef and pork is
20
one of the largest for food even though they contribute to only 4 % of food waste. The amount of
cheese of total food waste is only a couple of percent but its carbon footprint is large as well
(Silvennoinen et al. 2012). Landfilling biodegradable waste produces direct greenhouse gas
emissions but in Finland the amount of those emissions have reduced. The reason for this is that
less and less bio-waste is going to the landfills (European Environment Agency 2012).
We chose three main crops for each country that we are studying (if the data is available): rice for
Taiwan, wheat for France and barley for Finland. The unit we are using as an example is 100 kg
of chosen product. The GHG emissions of rice during the whole lifecycle from production to waste
disposal is 2,7 kg CO2-eq/1 kg of product. It means that throwing away 100 kg of rice produces
about 270 kg CO2-eq in vain (Environmental Working Group 2011). No specific data for wheat
and barley was found but we’ll do some calculations using a case study about producing these
cereals. In this case study (HGCA 2012), the GHG emissions for 100 kg of wheat was 36 kg CO2eq and for 100 kg of barley malt 24 kg CO2-eq. unfortunately these numbers include only the
agricultural production phase until transportation off site, not the consumer phase and so on.
Water footprint
Agricultural production is the biggest consumer of water resources, covering over 90 % of the total
water footprint (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2012). FAO (2013) assumes that the water footprint (WFP)
of food waste consists of the water usage in the agricultural phase only. The WFP includes blue,
green and gray water, blue water being the most important factor in this situation. Blue water is
water taken from the surface or groundwater (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2012).
The blue WFP of food wastage in Europe is rather small, less than 20 km3; per capita it is about
25 m3 (FAO 2013). Food waste from fruits is the largest consumer of blue water contributing to
almost 50 % of the total amount. The blue WFP of cereals and meat is almost equal to the blue
water footprint of fruits. Even though the cereal production is substantial in Europe, the WFP of
food waste from cereals is rather small. High average yield is a probable reason for this (FAO
2013). For wheat, the blue WFP is 34 m3 per 100 kg and the total WFP is 183 m3 per 100 kg.
Barley production is a bit less water intensive: the blue WFP is 8 m3 per 100 kg and the total WFP
is 142 m3 per 100 kg (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2011). Specific data on production for wheat in
France and barley in Finland wasn’t available so the global average WFP was used.
For calculating the WFP for rice, we used the information from China due to lack of data. We
assume that the environmental conditions are almost the same in Taiwan and, like FAO (2013),
take account only the WFP of the agricultural production. The blue WFP of wasting 100 kg of rice
is 49 m3 and the total WFP, including green and grey water, is 97 m3 (Chapagain & Hoekstra
2010).
21
Nitrogen footprint
Table 2. shows that the nitrogen emissions from food waste is almost 1,1 TgN per year in EU-27.
Food waste from cereals is responsible for over 25 % of the total nitrogen emissions (Grizzetti et
al. 2013). Leip et al. (2013) presented information about the nitrogen footprint of vegetables in
France and Finland. The definition of nitrogen footprint is: “The total direct N-losses to the
environment that occur for the production of one unit of (food) product” and it includes factors
such as fertilization, biological fixation of nitrogen and crop residues (Leip et al. 2013). In this
study, the term vegetable includes cereals like wheat and barley and they assume that the nitrogen
footprint within this group is the same. Only a partial life cycle analysis was conducted so that the
retail and the consumer phase weren’t taken into account.
Table 2. Nitrogen emissions from food and food waste to air, water and total per food group in
EU-27 (Grizzetti et al. 2013).
22
Some rough estimations were done relating to the nitrogen footprint of cereal waste. In France, the
nitrogen footprint of vegetables, depending on the model that has been used, is 300 to 570 g N per
100 kg product. The amount is quite bigger in Finland, 850 to 1100 g N per 100 kg (Grizzetti et
al. 2013). Even though these numbers don’t include the whole life cycle after the consumer, we
can now say some estimations of how much at least the wastage of these products strains the
environment. There was no specific data about Taiwan so it’s impossible to make any assumptions.
Utilization and management of food waste
Several terms are used for waste with a biological origin and they also differ between EU and
Taiwan. In the EU bio-waste is defined as: “biodegradable garden and park waste, food and
kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises, and comparable waste
from food processing plants. It does not include forestry or agricultural residues, manure, sewage
sludge, or other biodegradable waste such as natural textiles, paper or processed wood. It also
excludes those by-products of food production that never become waste” (European Commission
2015d). This definition is problematic because repurposed food waste is not considered waste. The
discussion of lessening wasting of resources through prevention, reuse and recycling, including
food waste, is ongoing.
The naming of waste streams is either derived from the origin of waste, as in the case of sewage
sludge, or by its components (COM 2000/532/EC). Bio-waste or biodegradable solid waste (BSW)
is a general term used for waste with a biological origin. Bio-waste comes in many different forms
and varies in consistency from liquid to semi-solids and solids. Usually they are defined as waste
water, bio-sludge or bio-waste, according to their consistency. Wastewaters are beyond the scope
of this work but it should be noted that a considerable amount of food waste comes in the form of
waste waters as mainly starch and sugars (van Ginkel et al. 2005). This liquid bio-waste comes
mainly from the food processing and manufacturing industry.
Generally speaking, if the source originated bio-waste classification is not taken into account, the
major difference in classification by consistency is the difference in water content. In waste
treatment facilities, bio-waste that has a lower content of solids than 15 % is considered to be biosludge, while bio-waste with a solids content higher than 15 % is considered to be bio-solids. There
is no formal definition (MSW) that we would know about. In Taiwan, all bio-waste found in the
municipal solid waste is considered to be food waste, even though it is most likely that there are
some fractions that are not food waste. Thus the difference between definitions has caused some
challenges. For example, all bio-sludges or bio-solids are often considered to be wastewater
sludge, even though that is often not true (van Ginkel et al. 2005). Nevertheless, the general term
23
bio-waste, regardless of the origin of the waste, is more or less the same in the perspective of waste
treatment.
Table 3. Currently available technology for the treatment of food waste. The environmental
impacts and costs are relative to best and worst treatment method listed (EU DG Environment
2009, Levis et al. 2010, Demirbas et al. 2011, Fava et al. 2015).
Treatment method
Cost
Products
Environmental
impact
Challenges
Landfilling
low
none or methane
high
leachate, GHG
emissions
Incineration
medium to high
heat, energy
medium
ash (5–15 % of
waste)
Composting, MBT
(Mechanical
biological treatment)
and home
composting
low to medium
compost
low-medium
water treatment,
source
separation:
plastics
AD (anaerobic
digestion)
medium
methane,
fertilizers
low to medium
water treatment,
source
separation:
plastics
Feeding to animals
low
feed
low
source
separation; only
suitable for some
food waste
Bioprocessing
very high
ethanol, nbutanol,
methanol, bio-oil,
dimethyl ether,
proteins,
fertilizers, fibers,
medicine
low to high (highly
dependent of
process)
cost, new
technology risk
24
It is mostly due to a matter of efficiency that most wet fractions are best fit for certain treatment
methods and drier fractions are best suited for others. In conclusion bio-waste is not uniform nor
its classification is exact, but the treatment methods are often robust and flexible and therefore
suitable for a multitude of different wastes of biological origin (EU DG Environment 2009). Food
waste, or more generally bio-waste, is treated with same methodologies and so in this part of the
paper the same applies for bio-waste if it’s not explicitly mentioned that this is not the case (Table
3). In the EU-28, it is estimated that approximately 200 million tons of household bio-waste and
230 million tons of food processing waste is generated every year. Of this a 100 million tons is the
amount of total food waste (COM 2008, Fava et al. 2015).
Situation in the EU (Finland and France)
Currently the landfill directive (1999/31/EC) restricts the landfilling of municipal BSW to 35 %
of the 1995 levels by 2016. This is due to the heavy greenhouse gas emissions from the landfills.
This regulation has changed the way bio-waste is treated in EU and the shift in many countries has
been considerable: e.g. in Finland, the landfilled MSW has dropped almost 55 % in the last 10
years and it is expected to be lowered by 10 % per year, instead of the landfilling, the MSW is
incinerated (OSF 2015). In the EU, there is an increasing pressure to change the treatment of the
food waste and bio-waste to more environmental friendly ways of disposing waste (COM 2008,
EU DG 2008). Table 4 shows different treatment methods of bio-waste in chosen countries.
The waste hierarchy might be implemented separately for food waste (Table 4.). This would mean
that disposal would be the least preferred method in the EU. Currently, the landfill directive does
not promote other means, it only restricts the use of landfills for BSW. Therefore in many
countries, the chosen treatment methods are incineration and still partly landfill, while disregarding
the actual environmental benefits and the costs of the other treatment methods (EU DG 2008,
Eurostat 2015). The incineration has a high capital cost so the countries that have invested in
incineration probably will not change their treatment methods and they are to deal with the
increasing amount of ash generated by incineration of waste in the future. The food waste
discussion in the EU has changed the general views from disposal to other means but it is yet not
certain what the implications for the future might be.
25
Table 4. The comparison of the treatment of bio-waste in the year 2012. The numbers also include
the bio-waste (BSW) which is not source separated and it is within MSW, therefore the numbers
are rough estimations. The BSW fraction of MSW accounts to the most of the bio-waste in
incineration and landfill (France & Finland). For Taiwan, it has to be noted that not all people are
within the waste collection service and the actual BSW might be higher per capita. Compiled from
data of publications and datasets: (COM 2008, EU DG Environment 2009, Levis et al. 2010,
R.O.C. 2010, Demirbas et al. 2011, Katajajuuri et al. 2014, Fava et al. 2015, Eurostat 2015, OSF
2015, and ADEME 2015).
2012
EU-28
France
Finland
Taiwan
Feeding to
animals
0%
0%
0%
9.0 %
Biorefining
n.a.
1.0 %
5.0 %
1.0 %
AD (anaerobic
digestion)
4.0 %
16 %
15 %
5%
Compost
24 %
20 %
30 %
10 %
MTB
17 %
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
Incineration
21 %
34 %
30 %
74 %
Landfill
33 %
29 %
25 %
1.0 %
Total bio-waste
100 Mton/a
11 Mtons/a
0,8 Mtons/a
3 Mtons/a
BSW per capita
198 kg/person
169 kg/person
148 kg/person
128 kg/person
The situation in Taiwan
In Taiwan, there has been a great improvement in the solid waste handling after implementing a
series of waste regulations in 2002. Since 1980s, the lack of landfill capacity led to a waste crisis
because there was just not enough space in the island nation for more landfills. In the year 1984,
only 2,6 % of the MSW was properly disposed. The government failed to solve the waste problems
by large-scale incineration because of the firm opposition of local communities. This led the
government to adopt goals and programs for waste prevention and recycling.
In 2005, TEPA launched a program under the Waste Disposal Act, which encouraged people to
and sort wastes into three categories: recyclables, food waste and residual waste (MSW). The
fraction of food waste recycled raised considerably from 0 to 9,6 % from 2000 to 2012. By the
26
year of 2011, almost all waste in the urban areas were within waste collection system. Since the
start of the programs, the total amount of waste has declined almost to half and the landfill disposal
has been almost eliminated (R.O.C. 2010). These regulations included Waste Disposal Act and
numerous subsidies to waste handling.
Food waste with high moisture is regulated to be treated separately, and usually divided into two
parts: one for swine feeding and the rest goes for compost. Reuse rates between swine feeding and
composting accounts for 68 % and 32 % of collected food waste respectively.
There have been some troubles with the impacts TRF program. Firstly, incomplete separation
causes some parts of food waste remain to be incinerated. Secondly food waste as swine feeding
may cause a potential risk of infection pigs. A public paper reported a risk of hepatitis (Chang et
al. 2013) and some pig farmers rejected the food waste influenced by a hepatitis epidemic in 2009.
Currently, all waste related operations or researches are eligible for 50 % subsidy from the
government if they are in line with the TEPA objectives (R.O.C. 2010). For food waste, there has
been a special program that focuses on raising the food waste reuse rate from 10 % to even higher.
Currently, the BSW is approximately 20–30 % of the MSW. The current waste disposal is
dominated by over 70 % of incineration (Table 4.). Food waste is rather problematic in incineration
because of the water content of over 70 % that causes a high energy usage. Therefore there is a
trend to move towards to anaerobic digestion (AD) treatment and other ways to deal with the food
waste. As in many countries, the rural areas are often not within the waste collection service and
dumping is therefore allowed outside the urban areas. Nevertheless, the waste handling has
dramatically improved and it seems that this development is going even further.
In conclusion, the treatment methods for bio-waste in EU comparison are quite similar. The major
difference is that there is already a considerable biorefining sector in Finland that produces
chemicals and fuel from food waste (Table 4). Taiwan has undergone a major undertaking to renew
the waste management and now the focus has shifted to better treatment of food waste (R.O.C.
2010). In Taiwan, the majority of food waste is incinerated. In all countries, there are still a lot of
BSW in the MSW that causes problems in the disposal of MSW and makes it difficult to recycle
the resources within the food waste. MTB or better source separation could partly fix this issue but
e.g. MTB in Finland this is impossible because of the legal reasons. The BSW fraction that is in
MSW is seen as environmentally harmful waste and this prohibits the utilization of bio-waste
fraction that is in the MSW in Finland (Finnish Waste law 2011/646). This might explain the rather
high numbers of landfilling and incineration in France and Finland.
27
The future of food waste
The amount of food waste is growing steadily in the EU and globally (EU DG 2009, HLPE 2014,
and Eurostat 2015). The food waste hierarchy sets an objective to lower the amount of waste
disposal and strives to achieve this mainly through waste prevention and utilization. This has raised
an interest to use food waste as a feedstock for biorefining. Currently, the world market of biobased products has expanded from 77 to 92 billion € from 2005 to 2010 and the highest estimate
for 2020 is at 515 billion € (without biofuels) (Fava et al. 2015). The second generation biofuels
are estimated to be worth $ 23,9 billion by 2020 and they are produced by using mainly soft fiber
agricultural residues and food waste (Mallick 2014). These trends highlight the importance of the
bio-waste or food waste as a resource and this might mean that the economic interest towards food
waste as a resource is rising swiftly. Will there be a situation in the future where there is less
incentive to reduce food waste if it becomes important resource for the bio-based products market?
Table 5. Some examples of Finnish biorefineries that utilize food waste (Environmental
regulatory reports of Finland, OSF 2015).
Feedstock
Production
By products
ST1 Hämeenlinna
15 000 t/a food
waste
1000 t/a ethanol
2500 CH4 t/a
ST1 Jokioinen
Cereals based
waste 120 000 t/a
(20 % d.m.)
9300 t/a ethanol
40 000 t/a feed
ST1 Lahti
9000 t/a food
waste
900 t/a ethanol
5500 t/a feed
Neste Oil NextBTL
Porvoo 1 & 2
12 000 t/a waste
oils (FIN) 388
000 tons oils
(abroad)
AD facilities (over 10)
<200 000 t/a food
waste
356 000 t/a Bio- Gasoline 5000 t/a,
diesel
Flue gas 25 000 t/a
16 000 t/a CH4
40 000 t/a d.m.
fertilizer
28
As an example, in Finland there are several refineries that utilize food waste, as seen in (Table 5.).
By our calculation, the turnover from only the bio-based products would be 8 million € for ethanol,
10 million € for biodiesel and 4 million € for biomethane (based on the price information on Argus
Biofuels 2015). It has to be noted that the main revenue for waste treatment comes from gate fees,
which can be in the range of 40–65 €/t. This would mean a total turnover of bioproducts from food
waste based materials to close to 80 million € annually in Finland. This is roughly 1/5 of 378
million € spend on food that is not eaten (based on Katajajuuri et al. 2014). Considering that the
utilized food waste is only 20–30 % of current total BSW (without composting) the value of food
waste is rather high. Still, considering that the gate fees are major part of the turnover, the valuation
of food waste mainly because of opportunity cost; there are only few options currently
economically feasible and available for food waste treatment. It is still evident that waste
management is changing rapidly, because the strong political will to change from linear economy
to closed loop circular economy.
Discussion
Food losses
Our comparison took part in kind of wealthy countries, where the agriculture is developed,
mechanized, fertilized and the yield is very high (81 q/ha for the wheat in France and almost 50
q/ha of rice in Taiwan). In Finland the yield for wheat is around 40q/ha, because of the northern
latitude. The food production is almost maximum; the remaining inefficient is due to the climatic
issues, pests or diseases. But there is still an issue with the breeding we are dedicating a part of the
arable land to grow cereals for that purpose. What we can discuss is the efficiency of the animal
breeding, as we said we are using 12 vegetal calories to produce 1 animal calories. The food
production process is efficient but by changing what we are producing rather than how we are
production, we can make it better.
Concerning the food loss occurring in the food chain processing, it’s almost reduced at 100 %, the
only waste material remaining is the unavoidable one. It’s due to peeling process and to the nonedible part of food in the raw products that is representing 18 % of the mass, but which have a low
amount of calories. However, this is an exception, as the processing system has been already
optimized, all the other food chain stages can be significantly improved.
Food waste
It depends strongly of the social, age, gender and conditions. We belong to a generation who never
know food scarcity and these are some reasons which prevent a better management of food waste
29
within the households. The lack of time is one of them as well as the lack of cooking knowledge.
These two factors lead us to have a bad organization and no organization at all concerning the food
management in the households. Lack of organization or bad organization sometimes voluntary (I
work all day long I do not want to care about the weekly food planning), and sometimes unwanted
(yes I have to plan it to avoid to throw things and lost money).
Taking the product with the further deadlines is really common practice, it enables the consumer
to have more time to consume the product, but most of the time the product is consumed long time
before the deadline despite that. In this case the ‘safety’ to take the product which can be consumed
in longer time frame could seem good idea to avoid food waste, because people think that the
produce has more chances to be consumed but in fact this is the opposite. This behavior entails
strong food waste for products, which could have been consumed before their deadlines, but which
are left in the shop by the consumers.
Consumers are not really aware of the amount of the food they waste (Le Monde 2014); food waste
is somehow became a daily gesture in our society: it can be in household but also in the collective
restaurant (schools for instance). Waste became a habit, not only for alimentation products but also
for electronic stuffs we cannot fix... the problems is that it is faster and easier to throw away and
get a new computer or to throw away a kilo of tomatoes which are judged overgrown, instead of
trying to fix the computer and arrange something (a soup for example) with the old tomatoes. At
the same time different alternatives have emerged from a small part of the population in order to
reduce food waste (association of Freeganism for instance) and keep another relation with food
consumption (and other consumptions in general) and are more interested to consume in a different
way (for instance preferred eat products that are “neglected” on the market like “ugly vegetables”,
etc.) At the end we observe two different kinds of consumptions that are completely opposed and
reveals at the same time the probable impacts of consumer’s behavior on food waste and the
alternatives that emerges and start to be recognized.
Environmental impacts
About one-third of the food produced is thrown away (FAO 2013) and if less food was thrown
away, the need to produce food could decrease as well. Prevention would be an effective way of
controlling the GHG emissions and saving the natural resources: for example, the amount of GHG
emissions from food waste is bigger than emissions from any country in the world (FAO 2013) so
it plays a significant role in climate change related issues. Substantial reductions in the water
consumption would be achieved as well by prevention because food production is the major water
consumer in the world (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2012) and the WFP of food waste consists almost
entirely of the WFP of the food production phase (FAO 2013). And lastly, it would affect the
amount of released nitrogen too: because nitrogen pollution from agriculture is diffuse making it
very difficult to control (Grizzetti et al. 2013), actions aiming at preventing wasting of food could
have a reducing effect on nitrogen emissions.
30
The utilization and treatment of food waste
The total amount of food waste is immense and it has a high economic and environmental impact.
Some food waste is inevitable and we need to have treatment or utilization technology for that part
of the food waste. What should we do with the waste? The food waste hierarchy states that the
disposal of waste should be the last option for the treatment of waste (HLPE 2014). Disposal is
still the major treatment method in all our comparison countries. The food waste hierarchy is a
good starting point, but it does not take account the new technological breakthroughs. One new
option is biorefining from which there are good experiences from Finland and we think should be
higher in the hierarchy than composting, because of the higher value it provides to society. There
is an increasing interest to utilize food waste as resource for biorefining (Fava et al. 2015).
However, biorefining is only a new business frontier, but despite that the development has been
rapid and the valuation of the total market of bioproducts has been exponential, so it could become
a major sector in the future (Fava et al. 2015, Mallick 2014). This could be one of ways to valorize
food waste and utilize them as daily life bio-products.
Will this kind of development hinder the will to reduce food waste, if there is a process to valorize
the waste? If we look at the data that is currently available in France, Finland and Taiwan, this is
a more like a positive problem that only exist with some material flows of food waste. This is
especially solution for easily utilizable starch, soft fibers and waste oils, because they are the best
resources for biorefining (Fava et al. 2015). For the most part of the food waste this is not the
solution now, a great part of the food waste is still either landfilled or incinerated, which is a simple
form of disposal (Table 4.).
That is why prevention should be still the most important way of dealing with the issue of food
wastage. For the inevitable part of waste, a lot of the food waste now is still being incinerated or
landfilled, so there is still a room for better utilization and valorization of food waste in EU, but
especially in Taiwan. Currently there is discussion about the food waste and food waste hierarchy
at least in the political level, which could mean that there is more attention to paid to the other
treatment options as well. In Taiwan there is a special program that tries to promote and find
alternative ways to treat the food waste. However, the current valorization options are more
expensive than a simple disposal, so without political intervention it is unlikely that treatment
systems for food waste would suddenly change, even though there is strong economic interest for
the easily utilizable parts of the food waste, that could alleviate a part of the problem (R.O.C. 2010,
European Commission 2015d, Fava et al. 2015).
31
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We’d like to thank both Traci Birge and Effie Papargyropoulou for the material and guidance
provided during the writing of this report.
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