So wasteful… think before dumping food

THE festive season is over. We made merry, feasting and drinking until the cows came home.

Many people over-indulged, filling their glasses with liquor and piling their plates with mountains of food. And when our stomachs could take no more, we dumped the leftovers into the bin without a second thought.

While rich households care nothing about wasting food, the biggest culprit is the hospitality industry, especially hotels, airlines and cruise liners.

It’s disgusting to see so much good food, some of it untouched, go to waste on cruise liners.

After gorging themselves, with eyes bigger than their stomachs, passengers lie sprawled out like crocodiles on the sundeck.

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation, the world produces more than enough food to feed its population of seven billion.

Yet one billion go to bed hungry. The reason? Roughly one third of all the food produced on Earth is lost or wasted. In monetary terms, this amounts to a staggering $1 trillion (R12.3 trillion). Every day I see the poor rummaging through bin bags looking for food. Even monkeys know there’s food in the refuse bags and tear the bags open searching for food.

Some of the food that is thrown away is still good. Many poor people even make a living scavenging for scraps on dump sites. Why throw it away? It’s a sin to waste food.

T MARKANDAN Silverglen