New research suggests Britain wastes the most food in Europe, making Britons officially the worst food wasters in the continent.
Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the food waste study looked at the data provided by six European countries in order to estimate their food waste levels, reported The Belfast Telegraph. Countries listed in the study include Finland, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Romania and Denmark.
The findings on European food waste reveal that each one of UK's 64 million citizens throw away at least a tin of baked beans every day. That makes 22 million tonnes of food wasted in the European Union annually, according to the scientists. Apparently, nearly 80% of this loss can be avoided.
"In some ways it's good that this waste is 'avoidable', because it means we're able to do something about it," according to lead scientist Davy Vanham of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.
Most of the wasted food reportedly consisted of cereals, fruits and vegetables, mainly due to their short shelf-life, according to the study. However, the discarded meat held the biggest loss when it came to nitrogen and water resources.
"Meat production uses much more resources in the first place, so even a little bit of waste can have a big effect in terms of lost resources," said Vanham.
He added that conservative sell-by dates as well as household affluence were both huge contributirs to food wastage.
"We've noticed ... that there is less food waste as the population tends to have less money," Vanham said. "Waste in cities tells us a lot-this is where the bulk of our population is living now."
Due to this information, British politicians and supermarket bosses have undergone increasing pressure to reduce their levels of waste. The Government has reportedly been constantly urged to ban supermarkets from throwing or destroying surplus stock, in reference to a similar ruling in France.
"Not only is [wasting food] morally repugnant, but it has serious economic and environmental implications," said Baroness Scott, chair of the House of Lords committee on food waste, last year.
In a worldwide perspective, as much as half of the entire food products in the world are thrown away each year. This amounts to more than 2 billion tonnes of waste. In addition, the carbon footprint generated by that much waste is estimate to be more than twice to that of which is created by America's road transportation industry, according to The Week.
Campaigners say that despite pressure on supermarkets, reducing food waste inside the home is the best and easiest way to combat food waste. A campaign called "Love Food Hate Waste" is now urging households to apply simple steps in order to waste less food and money by only buying what one needs, improving food storage and planning meals in advance.
According to Sharecast, Vanham also discussed several other ways of waste reduction. A top priority is education in schools. Another is urging governments to invest more "in measuring waste with greater accuracy."
