This week’s student spotlight is a policy briefing from IP2052: Practical Politics on food politics by Oliwia Pietrusiak which is an excellent demonstration of real-world engagement and skill-building in our undergraduate International Politics programmes.
Starting from producers, through processors and retailers, ending with consumers, food waste is surrounding us throughout all stages of the food supply chain. It can lead to severe implications, such as landfill issues, and is generally considered to have a damaging impact on the environment, which is why we at Greenpeace believe that appropriate measures need to be taken.
Estimates have shown that the United Kingdom (UK) over the years has gone through various inconsistent stages of combating food waste. In 2018, according to Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) data, the UK generated 9.52 million tonnes of food waste, of which 6.4 million tonnes of food were edible and could have created an additional 10.5 billion meals for deprived people (Jackman, 2021). During extraordinary times, such as the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) from 2019 to this year (2021), the UK faced a surge in food waste (Eley & Hancock, 2020). In comparison to 2018, the level of food waste increased during COVID-19, but it is starting to reduce back to still big 2018 figures (WRAP, 2021). In this context, the UK government has already pledged to reduce the food waste by 20% by 2025 and to eliminate it from landfill by 2030 (Office, 2020). At Greenpeace we firmly believe that there is more left to be done or with different measures to increase efficiency and consistency in combating the issue of food waste in the UK in the future.
The recent WRAP reports estimate that in 2018 most of the food waste came from households, which is why it is crucial to focus the power on this sector (Dray, 2021). Waste broken down by sector comprised of:
- 6.6 million tonnes (70%) from households
- 1.5 million tonnes (16%) from manufacturers
- 1.1 million tonnes (12%) from hospitality and food service (HaFS)
- 0.3 million tonnes (3%) from the retail industry
What more can the UK government do to help?
- Securing funding for food redistribution programmes
Earlier this year (2021), the UK’s government declared financial cuts for food redistribution programmes. Further such changes in funding may result in a regression in the UK’s battle with food waste, according to Fareshare, and could cause about 53 million meals to be left out rotting in landfills. Food redistribution programmes have proven their efficiency in combating food waste and poverty, ensuring that edible food waste is being eaten rather than thrown away (Simpson, 2021).
To help the food waste reduction initiatives, it can be suggested that by withdrawing financial cuts and maintaining an existing amount of £5 million per year on redistribution schemes food waste can be effectively reduced, along with poverty or can ensure landfill protection. However, with the intention of further improvement in the reduction of food waste, not just minimum functioning, additional funding might be necessary. An extended budget would allow creating innovative programmes responsible for further development (Simpson, 2021).
- Raising food waste awareness by introducing new food advertising regulations
Seeing that households are the main cause of producing food waste, it could be efficient to promote sustainable living to that target. As a part of the UK’s fight with rising obesity issues the government proposed to ban junk food advertising online and before 9pm on television by 2023 (Sweney, 2021). Similarly, educational programmes on food waste were made, but this issue still lacks consistency and needs a wider audience, and various sources.
To ensure the public’s ultimate awareness, it can be suggested to impose new advertising regulations concerning food. Food, among other few specific products regulated by certain requirements of advertising, is not treated with enough caution. Whereas alcohol and medicines advertisements consist of warnings, the UK government could go a step further than just regulating junk food commercials and impose a food waste caution after every food-related advertisement. It could be done by simple acknowledgement that people’s consumerism has an essential impact on producing food waste, followed by data presented earlier. This solution would spread food waste awareness in households, promote sustainable living, and address the problem of today’s consumerism. Moreover, using several different media such as television or online space could increase the chances of reaching people in all age groups. Although, it is important to remember that without interventions into the structural background of consumer behaviour and adjustments at the level of institutions and industries, awareness campaigns are limited and additional rethinking of consumers’ social environment and representations might be required (Elhadi M. Yahia, 2020).
- Improving the research for reducing consumer food waste
To reduce consumer food waste and take another step towards improving the sustainability of food systems to support global health, it could be beneficial to introduce new research proposals (Ahmed, et al., 2021). With food waste starting to get recognition as a threat in the modern world, new data research might be necessary to allow the UK’s government for further development.
However, in households’ food waste issue is still being underestimated. That is precisely why research is needed to obtain accurate data on the amount of food waste through community-based participatory approaches. This can be done through a citizen-science approach for tracking food waste through food waste audits and participant journaling. The following method has the potential to improve consumer food waste education while also providing measurements on how households respond to food waste programming across geographic locations. Citizen-science has also been acknowledged as a viable method for generating vast data sets that could guide research priorities, food waste reduction targets, and other sustainability objectives (Ahmed, et al., 2021).
Conclusion
At Greenpeace we firmly believe that the UK government should continue to develop solutions regarding combating food waste to ensure an efficient future. All presented policies have potential to reduce food waste in the UK and are targeted towards households to minimise the largest contributor’s input in the amount of produced food waste.
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