With countries stalling over policies in Copenhagen, one easy way to cut down on emissions seems rather obvious – eat food more carefully. Recent estimations show that 10 per cent of the worlds richest countries greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food which is never eaten.
Speaking today at the ‘Feeding the 5000’ event in Trafalgar Square, London, leading food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart teamed up with charities to highlight the global problems with food waste and demonstrate some practical ways to solve it.
The ingredients used in the feast were collected from local traders. Most was either excess stock or had been deemed unsellable due to irregular shape or size. With this volunteers worked from early in the morning to provide enough free curries, fruit bags and smoothies for five thousand passers-by.
The other food used was donated having passed its sell-by dates. Confusion over date labelling on food is estimated to result in 400,000 tonnes of food being thrown into landfill each year. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has called for supermarkets and food manufacturers to scrap the use of best-before and sell-by dates on food packaging.
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