In New Zealand, we could strip out 4% of our total emissions if we eliminated the footprint made by food and organic waste, an area in which we’re well-behind other countries.
France has been requiring supermarkets to donate unsold food since 2016; Japan mandates businesses to recycle food waste into animal feed and fertilisers; and even Australia now has a nationally co-ordinated approach.
Even in a nation where one in five kids face food insecurity, the average Kiwi household throws away about $1500 of food each year - or a whopping $3.2b collectively.
Homes aren’t the worst culprits, are they?
Yes, households are the biggest single source of food waste, accounting for roughly a third of it. The rest happens as food is produced, processed, distributed, stocked and wasted at places like supermarkets and bakeries.
All that waste comes with an environmental footprint: be it from water, energy or the fuel used to truck it.
So where does that wasted food go?
A vast amount of it - nearly 160,000 tonnes, or 270 jumbo jets packed with food - goes straight to landfill each year.
That’s a bad idea, the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser Professor Dame Juliet Gerrard told the Herald, because it becomes a source of methane pollution.
“Some landfills capture a portion of this, but not all of it,” said Gerrard, whose office has published a major report on the issue today.
“Our landfills are filling rapidly, and it’s very hard to get social license to build new ones.”
Many countries have already banned food waste from landfills because of its potent methane-making potential.
Source / New Zealand Food Waste Champions 12.3
So, what needs to happen?
Gerrard’s report, the culmination of more than two years of work, comes with 27 recommendations to the Government and more than 50 large food businesses.
It calls for a national plan and target, smarter monitoring, better strategies to tackle food loss at source, promoting food rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food isn’t thrown out.
Moreover, Gerrard said a “systems-wide” approach was needed.
“Food loss and waste happen at all stages of the food supply chain, from paddock to plate, and the solutions have to be systems-wide as well,” she said.
The Prime Minister's chief science adviser, Professor Dame Juliet Gerrard. Photo / Greg Bowker
“Consumers have an important role to play, but more needs to be done to understand how decisions across the wider supply chain influence food waste at all stages.”
Should change be compulsory?
While food rescue programmes have been saving the equivalent of tens of millions of meals each year - and our major industry players have signed up to a national pact called The Kai Commitment - there aren’t any legal requirements for companies to reduce waste.
Regulatory measures being explored overseas were coming with “varying degrees of success”, said Kaitlin Dawson, executive director of the coalition New Zealand Food Waste Champions 12.3.
“These include incentivising donation of surplus food or upcycling waste streams and either increasing taxing on landfill or banning organic waste to landfill.”
Gerrard suggested that with financial support or certification programmes, companies might be encouraged to adopt new waste-busting technology.
“Simply requiring businesses to separate food scraps from general waste can be a powerful tool - for both measurement and diversion purposes - and is an approach under consideration at a national scale.”
Overseas governments were also reviewing the use of date labels on food, and there have already been calls to ban them on fresh produce here.
“What we do know is that reducing food waste is a vital part of solving climate change and regulation of some sort is likely in the coming years,” Dawson said.
“Our work with industry is to help them stay ahead of the curve.”
Jamie Morton is a specialist in science and environmental reporting. He joined the Herald in 2011 and writes about everything from conservation and climate change to natural hazards and new technology.
