EU food waste consultation launched

Entitled Sustainability of the Food System, the consultation runs from July 9 to October 1 and welcomes views from European citizens, organisations and public authorities on how to reduce the 89 million tonnes of food wasted in the EU each year. The findings will be published in early 2014.

The Commission estimates that up to two billion tonnes, or between a third and half of all food produced around the world is lost or wasted annually. Unless action is taken to kerb the trend, it is predicted that food waste in the EU could rise to 126 million tonnes a year by 2020.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potonik said: “This is morally and economically unacceptable and is all the more horrific when you consider the true scale of the resources required to produce those 89 million tons. We are also wasting all those resources. There’s something wrong with the system.”

Respondents to the consultation are asked their thoughts on priorities for action, how to measure the impact of food production and what policies should be implemented to meet these challenges.

Action

However, questions surrounding the long-term sustainability of current methods of food production are not only exclusive to a rise in waste. Overfishing, a demand rather than supply-driven economy and the depletion of water resources and phosphorous are all factors that the Commission believes could or have already exceeded environmental limits.

The consultation itself is based on the Commissions Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe published in September 20 2011, which calls for new ways to reduce inputs, minimise waste, improve management of resource stocks, change consumption patterns, optimise production processes, management and business methods, and improve logistics.

Depletion

The initiative follows an earlier consultation from the Commission launched on June 3, which looked at the future of Europes legally binding waste and recycling targets (see letsrecycle story).

Set to run until September 10 2013 and headed by UK-based consultancy Eunomia, the consultation asks stakeholders to comment on caps on the amount of waste that can be sent for incineration and the introduction of targets for new waste streams such as wood, food waste and textiles.