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One Green World
WED helps to spread awareness about how much we are hurting our planet.! GO!
WED - for the planet
World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972.GO!
Bin it - not
Overflowing garbage has made Kolkata a hell-hole, but can we cut back on the garbage we generate? GO!
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Save that food!
Environmental protection is not a single-day campaign. This is a life-long cause of day-to-day efforts of every citizen of the world. So, participate in the celebrations and make it a habit to take how much you want and avoid food wastage.
Start up with these basic rules:
• Select foods that have less of an environmental impact, preferably organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process
• Proper planning of meals before buying, to avoid food wastage
• Cook the food as per requirement with measurements
• Reuse the leftover food
FACTS:
1. 1/3 of all food in the world is wasted. These 1.3 billion tones of food would be enough to feed 4 times all the hungry in the world.
2. Almost 1 billion people are hungry worldwide. On the other hand around 1.5 billion people in the whole world are overweight and 400 million are obese.
3. In USA between 40% and 50% of food is thrown away. It is calculated that it stands for $165 billion (it’s ¼ of the US military budget).
4. An average American throw out around 240 lbs of food per year.
5. An average American family of 4 throws out food worth $2,275.
6. A 20% reduction in food waste would be enough to feed 25 million Americans.
7. Food waste happens on various levels: 20-25% on manufacturing, 15-20% on retail and 55-65% on consumer.
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Wanton wastefulness is leading to depleted or vanished resources.
Today's waste, tomorrow’s shortage
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| Starvation diet : While the urban Indian counts her/his calories and usually doesn't bite off more than can be chewed, there are still plenty of occasions where food is thoughtlessly wasted. The aunt that piles your plate higher than you can ever eat is guilty as you are, when you slyly tip the surplus into the refuse bin. |
“There is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed” - Mahatma Gandhi
Food distribution is a perfect example in suport of the Mahatma's statement. Most people already know millions of people on Earth are suffering from starvation. Are today's famines just natural disasters - Acts of God - that nobody has control of? Is there just not enough food in this world for everyone? Is the possility of food security something of a First World dream?
Let’s check the facts…
The higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns resulting from global climate change is a factor threatening food production in many parts of the world. Africa will be the worst hit by climate change. It has the most hungry people, the fewest resources to adapt and is population will double in the next 40 years.
Above that, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted, along with all the resources used to grow, manufacture, transport and sell the food. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.
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Surplus vegetables rot in a smelly pile
Is it any different in India? Admitting to the grave problem of wastage, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food processing industries,Tariq Anwar, says that every year India faces a loss of Rupees 50,000 Crore ($10 Billion) worth of both perishable and non-perishable food item. After 1960, India went on to become a food surplus country from being a food deficit country, but wastage has still not been brought under control. To this, the experts opined that lack of skilled manpower and shortage of infrastructure has been resulting in wastage of up to 40 per cent of the total food produced in India every year.
‘Don’t waste foods by making it rot in the godown; better give it to the poor who don't get a daily meal’. This sensible advice has come from none but the Supreme Court of India in order for the Government to wake from their sleep and think over the amount of food being wasted in the country.
Have you ever thought how much of food is wasted at a marriage feast, parties - or at a restaurant every day? A wedding, a grand party and celebration of any kind leaves behind happy memories to cherish but also leaves behind an enormous amount of leftover foods. When large quantities of food goes wasted instead of feeding hungry mouths, it ends up in a landfill — ultimately contributing to global warming by releasing methane gas.
Priyam Bose says, “Once, when I was finished with my meal at a marriage reception and went to return my empty plate, I watched with great regret and concern that there were few plates with half of the food left which straightaway went into the dustbin.”
The shortage of food can be overcome, perhaps, but not the wastage of food - unless every human being realise his/her responsibility now.
“I have taught my kids to take little amounts of food at a time so that they have a habit of having food as per their need. This helps the food from being wasted not only at home but wherever they go”, says Madhu Sharma, a homemaker. Let's all contribute to preventing waste, and by doing that forever banish the horror of starvation from our beautiful world!
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