More than a fifth of purchased food is ‘wasted’

More than a fifth (22 per cent) of the food purchased weekly by people in Malta ends up in the solid waste stream, according to the National Statistics Office.

In a statement to mark World Environment Day 2013 tomorrow, the NSO said that meat and meat products constituted the largest expense in the local food basket (23 per cent).

This was followed by bread and cereals (19 per cent) and milk and cheese (15 per cent).

It was estimated that residents consumed 12.17 kilogrammes of food per capita on a weekly basis, or 1.73 kilogrammes daily. This consumption pattern cost, on average, €26 per week for every resident.

The average food waste generation in Maltese households was 55.8 per cent, an average 0.38 kilogrammes per capita of solid waste per day.

Destruction of foodstuffs, either to expiry or as a result of inferior quality standards, wasalso considered as food waste.

In 2011, 34.4 tonnes of food were destroyed, rising to 95.7 tonnes in 2012

This year’s World Environment Day theme is “Think.Eat.Save”. The objective is to raise awareness to reduce food waste, save money, minimise the environmental impact of food production and enable food production processes to become more efficient.

Source: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130604/local/food.472524

Posted by admin on Jun 4 2013. Filed under News at Now. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry