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The food wastage phenomena An overview of the current situation in three countries: France, Finland Taiwan Alex Phil, Fangzhou Li, Fanny Augis, Marjo Patama, Omar Mouhdi, Rémi Delabruyère, Tuure Parviainen

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Abstract

Food wastage results in one third of the global food supply being lost and wasted throughout the global food supply chain. It is a relevant issue both in developed and developing countries and a major contributor to global food insecurity. In order to better understand the phenomena of food wastage, we did an overview of the current situation in three geographical areas of interest; we chose Finland, France and Taiwan. We decided to further divide the food wastage phenomena into food losses, food waste, environmental impacts and waste utilization. This was done in order to overview food wastage on different levels of the food supply chain, assess its environmental impacts and the possibilities of using waste as a resource. The discussion part then presents the questions and findings that rose during the overview writing and discuss issues with the relevant literature. We found that the differences between our chosen countries were relatively small, and that the factors thought to affect food wastage were different than expected. There is a big difference in the way food waste is perceived in Taiwan and in the EU. In the EU food waste is seen as an ethical and environmental issue while in Taiwan it is seen as practical problem. Tackling the issue of food wastage promises a possibility of saving a large amounts of natural resources and lessening the environmental impact of human activity. The future of waste utilization also shows great potential in terms of economical possibilities and technical advances, but it might also present a problem in its own as it clashes with the ideal of preventing food waste if it turns out to be a valuable resource. Combining the efficient prevention and high value utilization would to our knowledge be the best way to deal with the food wastage, but currently disposal is still the major way to deal with the food waste in the comparison.

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Table of Contents The food wastage phenomena ......................................................................................................... 1 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 4 Food loss ................................................................................................................................... 10 Definition of food loss ........................................................................................................... 10 Gross production.................................................................................................................... 10 Crop losses ............................................................................................................................. 11 Transportation ........................................................................................................................ 11 Losses due to machines and food processing ........................................................................ 11 Biomachine, meat production ................................................................................................ 12 Supermarkets ......................................................................................................................... 12 Food waste................................................................................................................................. 13 Why is food wasted?.............................................................................................................. 13 Political reasons for food waste ............................................................................................. 13 Economical background of food waste ................................................................................. 15 Social and cultural background of food waste....................................................................... 17 Alternative movements .......................................................................................................... 18 Environmental impacts .............................................................................................................. 19 Greenhouse gas emissions of food waste .............................................................................. 19 Water footprint ...................................................................................................................... 20 Nitrogen footprint .................................................................................................................. 21 Utilization and management of food waste ............................................................................... 22 Situation in the EU (Finland and France) .............................................................................. 24 The situation in Taiwan ......................................................................................................... 25 The future of food waste ........................................................................................................ 27 Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 28 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 31 Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 31

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Introduction Food insecurity is an increasing global issue, with around one billion malnourished individuals globally (Kummu et al. 2012). A major contributor to the global food crisis is the wastage of food that occurs in the global food supply chain (FSC). It is estimated to account for one third of the global food supply in terms of weight (Lipinski et al. 2013). In terms of energy this food accounts for approximately a quarter of the global food supply in kilocalories (1,46 x 1015 kcal/year). Assuming a 2100 kcal/cap/day food supply, this food wastage in amount of kilocalories could feed around 1,9 billion human individuals (Kummu et al. 2012). With such a large quantity of the global food supply being lost or wasted, treating the issue of food wastage is being recognized as an important method of addressing the global food security situation. In order to understand the issue of food wastage, different perspectives have to be taken into account, namely the social, environmental and economic sustainability (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014). In addition to assessing the global food wastage in terms of mass (weight) and energy (kilocalories) food wastage should also be considered in terms of wasted resources and economical loss. In terms of economic losses, the global food wastage was estimated to be worth 750 billion USD in the year 2007 (FAO 2013). In the form of wasted natural resources, the global food wastage is estimated to account for 24 % (27 m3/cap/year) of freshwater used in crop production, 23 % (31 x 10-3 ha/cap/year) of cropland area used and 23 % (4,3 kg/cap/year) of fertilizers used globally (Kummu et al. 2012). In addition to the resources used for the production of wasted food, agriculture is the source of approximately 22 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014). Food that is lost or wasted also accounts for a part of the GHG emission tied to agriculture. The lessening of food wastage could thus also be seen as an effective method of conserving resources and lessening the environmental impact of human activity. Food wastage occurs due to many different reasons and the term food wastage is thus often further divided into food losses and food waste, in order to specify food wastage on different stages of the FSC: “Food wastage refers to any food lost by deterioration or waste. Thus the term “wastage” encompasses both food loss and food waste” (FAO 2013). Food loss and waste together encompass: “the edible parts of plants and animals that are produced or harvested for human consumption but that are not ultimately consumed by people” (Lipinski et al. 2013). The division between food loss and food waste is done according to where the wastage occurs within the FSC, as shown in Fig. 1 (HLPE 2014).

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Fig.1. Food losses and waste in the food supply chain (HLPE 2014). Food loss by itself is defined as: “a decrease in mass (dry matter) or nutritional value (quality) of food that was originally intended for human consumption” (FAO 2013). While food loss occurs as:” the unintended result of an agricultural process or technical limitation in storage, infrastructure, packaging, or marketing” (Lipinski et al. 2013). Thus food loss occurs in the preconsumer phase of the food supply chain, while food waste occurs during the consumer phase and is influenced by a different set of variables: “Food waste refers to food appropriate for human consumption being discarded, whether or not after it is kept beyond its expiry date or left to spoil. Often this is because food has spoiled but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply due to markets, or individual consumer shopping/eating habits” (FAO 2013).

6 How food wastage occurs differs between areas globally. In developed countries food is mostly wasted in the consumer phase of the FSC, while in developing countries food is lost mainly during the pre-consumer phase of the FSC. Food wastage in developed countries is thus mainly tied to issues of food waste while food wastage in developing countries occur mostly as food losses (FAO 2011). In order to understand how the issue of food wastage can be tackled, many different variables have to be taken into account. In addition to defining food wastage occurring on different levels of the FSC, it is important to survey mechanisms and impacts of food wastage. Thus both research on the impacts of food wastage and on methods of lessening it is done in order to better understand the phenomena and to propose possible ways of lessening it. Papargyropoulou et al. (2014) presents the food surplus and waste framework, seen in Fig. 2, as a way of identifying an effective way of avoiding food wastage, by targeting food surplus and food waste.

Fig. 2. Food surplus and waste framework (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014).

7 “The proposed framework interprets and applies the waste hierarchy in the context of food waste, provides and prioritizes options for dealing with food surplus, avoidable and unavoidable food waste. The most favorable options are presented first and are placed at the top of the framework, with the least favorable options presented lower down the framework” (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014). The food surplus and waste framework is then summarized into the food waste hierarchy that orders the methods of lessening food waste from the most favorable option at the top of the hierarchy to the least favorable option at the bottom of the hierarchy, as shown in Fig.3. While the food waste hierarchy focuses on the waste and surplus aspect of the food wastage phenomena, HLPE (2014) identifies different sources and forms of food loss and food waste along with their impacts on different levels of society. HLPE (2014) separates “food quality losses and waste” from food losses and food waste in mass, as seen in Fig. 4. Taking into account food quality loss and waste allows one to consider processes that lessen the nutritional value of food as mechanisms of food wastage. As mentioned earlier HLPE (2014) assesses the economic, social and environmental impacts of food wastage, by dividing society and the impact of food wastage into three different levels, as presented in Fig. 5.

Fig. 3. Food waste hierarchy (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014).

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Fig. 4. Definitions of food losses and food waste (HLPE 2014).

Fig. 5. Impacts of food loss and food waste on different levels of society (HLPE 2014).

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Fig. 6. “The food use-not-waste-hierarchy to minimize FLW” (HLPE 2014). In contrast to the waste hierarchy presented by Papargyropoulou et al. (2014), HLPE (2014) presents the “food use-not-waste hierarchy” for identifying ways of minimizing food wastage through a food use prioritization, as seen Fig. 6 It is important to note that both the “food waste hierarchy” (Papargyropoulou et al. 2014) and the “food use hierarchy” (HLPE 2014) identify prevention as the most favorable option while identifying disposal as the least favorable option of all. In order to better understand the food wastage phenomena we concluded that doing an overview of the food wastage situation in a chosen area would be a good way of immersing ourselves in the subject. Using the information we had of the global food wastage situation, along with the background information we gathered on food wastage, we did an overview of a total of three separate areas. The areas we chose to use were Finland, France and Taiwan. These areas were chosen as areas of interest due to group member backgrounds. The overview was done with the background information in mind and we want to take into consideration food wastage on different levels of the food supply chain, the management of food related waste and the environmental impacts associated with food wastage. The overview is thus divided into four parts as following: food loss, food waste, environmental impacts and waste management. An overview of the current

10 situation of each subtopic is done for each country, in order to form an overall picture of the food wastage situation in each of the chosen areas. Findings and questions that arise during the construction of the overview will then act as a base for the report discussion. By doing this overview we hope to deepen our knowledge of the food wastage phenomena to better understand both the issues that lie behind food wastage and the issues related to food wastage.

Food loss

Definition of food loss The pre-consumer stage is actually what we can call the food loss, it refers to “food that spills, spoils, incurs an abnormal reduction in quality such as bruising or wilting, or otherwise gets lost before it reaches the consumer. Food loss is the unintended result of an agricultural process or technical limitation in storage, infrastructure, packaging, or marketing” (Lipinski et al. 2013). Taiwan’s Green National Income (2014) has classified agricultural waste into six types: crop residue, fishery waste, forestry waste, livestock waste, market waste, and food processing waste. So except in the case forestry waste, the other five types are all related to food loss. Gross production Concerning demography, France has a population of 67 million people and the agricultural area is 27,8 million hectares. The population of Finland is almost 5,5 million and due to the big area dedicated to forestry, the agricultural area is barely 2,2 million hectares. Taiwan’s scale is in between with 23 million inhabitants and a less than one million hectares of arable lands due to its geography. There are a huge differences in arable land and therefore in the production as well; the production in France is 67,5 million tons (MT) of cereals and 5,5 MT of meat. Finland produces 4,1 MT of cereals and 0,4 MT of meat (INSEE 2013). Because of its cultural differences, Taiwan produces 1,7 MT of rice, 1,7 MT of wheat and 1,6 MT of meat (FAOSTAT 2013). To make a comparison, the French production is almost one ton of cereals and 82 kg of meat per capita; in Finland it is 0,75 ton of cereals and 72 kg of meat (FAOSTAT 2013). Taiwan is characterized by an average meat production, 67 kg of meat per capita and a low production of cereals: 148 kg per capita including the rice (50 %). From now on, to make a comparison, we are scaling the numbers to 100 kg of wheat and 100 kg of meat. We will follow the amount of food remaining and the amount of food lost during each step of the process.

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Crop losses Here, we are only considering the crops losses after harvesting; we are not considering the losses due to climatic issues before the harvesting season. Unfortunately, the data we found was a European averages and we were not able to make differences between Finland and France however the literature shows that the figures concerning the food loss are quite homogenous in Europe and in wealthy countries. In Taiwan, crop residue amounted to approximately 2,0 million tons of all the agricultural waste from 2001 to 2013 (Taiwan Green National Income 2014).

First of all, a part of the loss is due to machine inefficiency and is mostly unavoidable. Then we have some avoidable losses because of late or non-harvested fields. It can be a scheduling issue but sometimes the crops are voluntary left in the field not to disturb the market when the price level is not satisfying. Another type of food loss is more linked quality especially with fruits and vegetables; it’s the ugly or mismatching quality grade fruits. Meanwhile some losses are called unavoidable; this one is one hundred per cent avoidable. (FNE 2010.) In the end of the chain, there is the loss due to storage, which depends on the time that the seeds or the fruits are stored. Those products can be exposed to diseases, fungi and pests. At the end of this first step and without getting through any processing, we have already lost 21 % (Kummu 2012) of the production. What is important to consider is not only the amount of food, but also all the inputs used to make it grow. Knowing that 1 kg of wheat needs 590 l of virtual water and 0,03 kg of nitrate and the production of 1 kg of fertilizer release 7,59 kg CO2-eq (IPCC 2013), we can conclude that in those 21 kg of wheat, we are actually losing 12,4 m3 water and releasing 159 kg of CO2-eq to the atmosphere. Here is the point that we have to remember in every single step, the food loss is strongly bounded to the mean loss. The further we are going through the processing chain, the more inputs are used and the losses are getting bigger. Transportation Going through the process, transportation is maybe a part that is causing the smallest part of food loss. Concerning the meat, it’s around 0,1 % of the total food lost and for the cereals it’s almost the same. (Averos et al. 2008.)

Losses due to machines and food processing Actually in this phase, the losses are due essentially to the machine’s limits. The food industry has started the optimization process a long time ago and now a day the processing efficiency is very

12 high (FAO 2012). The loss is between 2 % for liquids and wheat for example and the maximum is 5 % for the fruits and the vegetables (FNE 2010). For example these losses are due to the peeling, trimming and polishing process. The loss concerning the wheat and the meat are 2 and 2,5 %. Taiwan instead produced 2,76 kt processing wastes in 2013 (Taiwan Green National Income 2014). Biomachine, meat production Nowadays we are eating more and more meat, in term of calories it’s not efficient at all. We are using 4 calories to produce one chicken or pork calorie, 8 calories are used for 1 milk calorie and finally to produce 1 calorie coming from lamb or beef we are using 12 calories (Colomb 1999). The vegetal calories we are talking about were never dedicated to the human consumption however arable lands, machines and fertilizer were used to make them grow. That’s the global loss due to a piece of meat thrown to the garbage are so important. We should eat meat in a proper amount and not letting the breeding system regulate itself in order to reduce significantly its environmental impact (FAO 2006). Supermarkets Earlier we talked about the Ugly or mismatching grade fruits. This issue comes directly from the supermarkets that are what the standards are going to be. To be clear, the taste and the nutritional quality of these products are very good but they are presenting an esthetic default. This stage is massively concerning the fruits and the vegetables. At this point it is understandable that there are some major differences: France is a huge vegetables and fruits producer with 15 megatons meanwhile Taiwan and Finland don’t have that much production. For example, there are some established rules relating to the distribution chain: carrots that can’t be peeled in one motion, are not allowed to be sold in the stores. This single rule excludes between 25 and 30 % of the carrots. This part is used in precooked meals. In Europe, the policies are alike and the major causes of food loss in the supermarkets are inappropriate orders, issues during shelf storage, fluctuation of customers demand and also throwing the products before their expiration date. We can reduce the amount of food lost in this stage by being more careful during the transportation and the storage phases. Another thing to do is to give the products close to their expiration date to NGO, this decision can be more efficient when it’s supported by the government like in Belgium (Consoglobe 2013). At the end of our process we have 75 kg of wheat and 95 kg of meat. Even if the meat loss is smaller than the loss relating to the cereals: the environment impact is bigger because of all the means used to produce it.

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Food waste

Why is food wasted? In today’s society food waste is widespread and takes place on many different scales. In households, schools and restaurants, wasting food has become a daily practice. However, food waste also became a relevant issue both among consumers (and so society) and in politics (Planetoscope 2012). Taking into account the huge amount of food wasting that occurs, European projects like “Stop food waste” and country scale policy programs (like France that we will develop later) have recently been put into motion in order to reduce the amount of food waste. Before presenting these different programs it is important to consider the politics that to a degree allow the food waste to occur. Food wasting is made up of a complex assembly of political, social and economic factors which all contribute to the food waste phenomena. Explaining this assembly will make up the first part of our food waste related case study. Political reasons for food waste Present political actions aimed at lessening food wasting were in most observed cases found to be ineffective or even insufficient. According to one of the FAO’s reports (FAO 2013) 1/3 of the food produced globally is wasted, which confirms the inefficiency of current political actions aimed at lessening the wasting of food. Moreover, according to the FAO (2011), the role of food waste is more important than role of food loss in Western countries: most food waste in western countries occurs during distribution and as a consequence of consumer behavior. Therefore political action towards food waste can be difficult to establish (Le Monde 2014), especially knowing that most of the time food waste in supermarket is a consequence of the market law (increasing of the amount of goods in order to obtain as much profit as possible in a given amount of time, and somehow wasting food has also become profitable for the most important food industries) or constrain by the strict health law (for example, laws which are similar in France and in Finland concerning these topics) forbids companies to give food waste to people or employees, due to the risk of foodborne pathogens). The food that is not consumed can’t be used as feed in animal breeding either, since sanitary related crises like the mad cow disease in 1990 (Future Environment 2013). We can thus deduce that policies encounter difficulties to be effective, because the food waste system is complex and takes place on several different scales (country/household/individuals). However this does not mean that policies have not been established. Many prevention programs have been developed both in the European Union (European Commission 2015a) and on country scale. On the European scale, food wasting has become a relevant issue: “The European Commission is taking the issue of tackling food waste very seriously”. According to the European Food

14 Commission (2015a), addressing the issue of food waste is mainly seen as a way to save resources. In 2014, the European Commission started to develop a program in order to reduce food wastage on a large scale and more precisely reducing food wasting by at least 30 % by 2025. All sectors tied to food consumption will be integrated in the plan, from factories to public services to homes. The main way of working is to partner with the food industry and co-operation between the different states. Many project have been thought of, for an example establishing a double use-by date, a more important choice in the quantity of food proposed etc. Also additional alternatives to recycle the food waste are considered. In addition to this program, an increase of awareness towards food waste and prevention of it is a priority. In France, the goals are quite similar than of the European Commission. An increase of the government role in facing the food waste issue has been observed during recent years. Many programs to raise awareness and also to prevent food waste have been developed these last years. A new work group called “Waste prevention” was funded in 2012 with the aim of working on a solution to reduce or avoid food waste (Ministère de l’écologie 2014). This work group gathers various actors around the table (economics, politics, social, etc.) and also works on several different scales (food industry/ household). At the end many proposition have been established, for an example a less strict law (sanitary) for the people who want to give the food not consumed to associations. Likewise other awareness campaigns have been established which encourage the idea of not wasting food, or try to change consumer behavior (for an example the program “Eat 5 ugly vegetables or fruits per day”). In Finland, prevention of food wasting is mainly lead by the Finnish organization Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE 2014). Research groups also work in order to change consumer behavior and raise awareness on food wasting. The group work consists of studying consumer choice and the impacts of the choices made, in combination with studying food industry variables in order to be able to propose and elaborate concrete and efficient solutions (LUKE 2014). Likewise other policy projects to with the same aim have been created during the last years: from the Nordic council minister for instance, the alliance of European Nordic countries established a schedule to reduce food waste by donating and redistributing the food not consumed to low-income people (Norden 2013). In Taiwan, reduce food waste, is an issue which is became more important after the ‘80’s waste crisis’ (that will be discussed further later) but also because of the special characteristics of Taiwan, rapid population growth, geographic features (island, density of population etc.) which have contributed to push them to act. In 2000 a food waste recycling program called Total Recycling of Food Waste (TRF) was started by Taiwanese Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA). This program is based on prevention but also on concrete actions in order to sustain the “zero-waste policy” (Allen 2012). It includes awareness campaigns to make the people aware of the issues surrounding food waste, and to teach some ‘good behavior’ as sorting the wastes for example. It

15 also act in other scales such as townships, in 2009 for instance many of them in Taiwan (about 319) have benefited of a recycle food system. Economical background of food waste Food waste is not only tied to ethical issues and environmental impacts, it also represent a relative economical loss and part of the economy, not only on a country or food industry scale but on a household scale as well. Each year, the average amount of food wasted in the European Union is about a 100 million tons (European Commission 2014), an amount that can increase according to estimations, if nothing is done (126 million tons by 2020). According to the European Commission, (European Commission 2014), people in Europe waste on average 20 % of the food that they buy. But more than the food wasted, the losses are also economic and environmental. Wasting food is also wasting time, workforce and money, at the global and local scale. The economic agent’s responsibility occurs on different scales, but in this case we will focus on the highest one. The market’s economy when applied to food implies fluctuation, the creation of food waste, sometimes with product left harvested. The global market ruled by demand and supply, entails strong price variations of a given product. This can lead to the increase of prices and in turn to food riots in poor regions, but in the case of a strong decrease in the price it can lead to global waste at the producer scale because it is more profitable for them to leave it on the field instead of selling it for a lower price than the harvesting cost. Food waste also impacts the purchase power of households. It occurs in a direct way: throwing away a product equals lost money. But it also occurs in an indirect way: food waste occurring on the shop scale is also paid for indirectly by the consumer via the increase of the prices which enable the supermarket to stay profitable even if it throws away a lot of products. The economic impact on the smallest scale (households) has a bigger impact on the poorest households than on the richest, indeed the part of the income used for food in the household is higher for the poor households than for the rich (Engel’s law).Consequently we can consider that food waste affects (economically) the poorest households more than the rich households. In this presentation we focused on three countries (Taiwan, France and Finland). These countries have different characteristics and specificities with possible correlations between some of them and the specific characteristics of these countries, as seen in (Table 1.). In France, food waste represents 79 kg per capita and per year (ADEME 2014). In monetary loss it represents 430 euros lost per capita per year. Each year, the amount of food waste is 1,2 millions of tons. According to the Finnish research group MTT/LUKE, the food waste in Finland amounts to 130 000 tons each year. On a household scale, food waste is estimated to be around 120–160 kg. Per capita this food waste is estimated to be 23 kg and an economic loss of approximately 70 euros per capita. In

16 Taiwan, according to the Taiwan people’s food bank association (2012) food waste accounts for around 3 millions of tons of bio-waste per year or 121 kilos per capita per year. Table 1. The amount of food waste in France, Finland and Taiwan. Total bio-waste includes also the part of the food waste in MSW, which is estimated to be around 30 %. All calculations and data are based on the statistical year of 2012, except for Finland as the most comprehensive data was available for 2010 including sectors FI, RS, FSS, HH and FS. Taiwan’s values include in pre-consumer phase parts that are used as feed (R.O.C 2010, Katajajuuri et al. 2014, OSF 2015 and ADEME 2015). Country

Pre-consumer Stage

Househo lds (HH)

Total food waste (FS)

Total biowaste (BW)

Food industry (FI)

Retail sector (RS)

Food service sector (FSS)

France

n.a.

2.3 Mton

1.5 Mton

1.2–1.8 Mton

5.0– 5.6 Mtons

~ 11 Mtons

France per capita

n.a.

38 kg

27 kg

20-30 kg

76–85 kg

~ 170 kg

Finland

75–140 million kg

65–75 million kg

75–85 million kg

120–160 million kg

350– 460 million kg

~ 0.8 Mtons

Finland per capita

22–30 kg

12–14 kg

14–16 kg

22–30 kg

62–86 kg

~ 150 kg

Taiwan

4.97 Mtons

830 million kg

~ 1,5 Mton

~ 3.0 Mton

Taiwan per capita

220 kg

35 kg

~ 65 kg

~ 130 kg

17 Social and cultural background of food waste Our society is a society of abundance that consequently includes a ‘throw away mentality’ (Evans 2011). It means that normally a consumer can have all what they want and where they want, depending mostly on the amount of monetary resources they have available. This desire of ‘all and right now’ is both created by the market, the enterprise and advertisements for an example, and followed by the market. This desire of variety, both in the fridge and in the shops, results in a lot of food waste. One example of the consumption society’s effect on food waste is the example of having a ‘barbecue’: when the weather is warm and sunny everyone likes to do a barbecue, and everyone goes to the supermarket to buy meat. The problem here is that meat is a short-life product and the weather is hard to anticipate in advance. Due to this, 2 weekends out of 4 in the month, food is wasted because of bad weather. Supermarkets could buy a smaller amount of meat products, but they often do not want to take the risk of not having enough supply to meet the demand of the consumers. Running out of products could entail a degradation of the image of the supermarket and thus supermarkets rather waste products than take the risk of not having enough supply. The consumer’s expectations, which come not only from the consumer but indirectly from the various form of marketing, are also strongly involved in the production of food waste (Evans 2011). These expectations are often turned toward the aspects of the products, and the products have to fit strict criteria to be sold. These criteria can be legal obligations, sometimes as calibers, but in most of the time they are not regulated by a law but only by the consumers’ expectations. Our ‘relationship’ with food has also affected and is still impacting the production of waste. In developed countries we mainly belong to a generation who has never known food scarcity, in contrast to others generations who knew the second world war for example, or in contrast with people from other countries. It has deeply impacted our values concerning food as well as the decrease of religious practices in the western countries, which also has contributed to the degradation of the value of food. Our way of life is also a cause for the waste of food, we have become mainly urban and we can consider that it has also changed our approach to food. Because urban people live far away from the place of production, the value of labor that a farmer gives to a product, tends to disappear in urban areas. Our livelihoods are also involved in food waste for others reasons, the demand and the need for fast food for an example, both in a restaurant and in a household, the success of prepared meals for microwave illustrate that we need to eat fast and we are losing our know-how about how to cook fresh product in an efficient way, and how to manage a good meal with what we have instead of throwing it in the trash. A lack of time is one of the main problems in the food waste issue, a lot of stakeholders including retail shops and producers, prefer sometimes to throw food into the trash instead of keeping it and

18 managing it. The research of speed and profitability is at all the scales a key feature of food waste and losses. Alternative movements Even if the governments and policies programs are starting to be aware of the issue concerning food waste, policies still remain insufficient or not effective at this time. However it does not mean that the citizens do not act for themselves. People are mainly aware of the amount of food wasted, and it raises many questions concerning environmental consequences, economic losses and ethical sustainability. For instance a practice often called ‘Freeganism’ has been developed by citizens, where they pick up the food from the dumpsters in supermarkets. This practice has been used by more and more people during the lasts years and not only by low-income people (even if they represent most of the people who practice this). This, in a way shows the increase of awareness to face the issue of food waste in our countries. Furthermore this practice is not only used in Europe but also widely around the world. Freeganism is mainly a mainstream practice now, which gathers people denouncing our consumer societies (Hieu et al. 2014). Another movement, more specific to France is ‘Gars’Pilleurs’ which is an association of people who aim to give in the street for example the food that they pick up in supermarket dumpsters and by this ‘popularize’ the freeganism practice (Les Gars’pilleurs 2014). Other projects by the population and associations have been developed in order to reduce food waste: for an example the increasing donation of food to food banks (mainly held by charitable associations) with the aim to redistribute the food to low-income parts of the population. Many food banks now exist in the European Union (FEBA 2015). In addition we should note the increasing importance of social networks which also play a role: some forums or internet platforms can be used to connect people: for example the Finnish Facebook group called ‘Kallio kierrättää’ wherein people sell or give away things that they do not need any more instead of wasting it. This can also include food among a wide range of things. Therefore the increasing importance of social networks cannot be ignored. They can have a significant role in food waste, or more precisely in the reducing of food waste. These are some examples of ways to reduce and denounce food waste which emanates from the citizens themselves. In a nutshell, we conclude in this part that the wasting of food is a major issue and that a lot remains to be done in order to lessen its impact. However we also demonstrated that the food waste issue is starting to be integrated in politics with several programs, as mentioned previously, at a supranational scale (European Union) as country scale (France and Finland). Lastly we also show that some alternatives can be establish without policies program, but rather from the citizens themselves and reflects somehow the increasing of awareness face to the huge amount of food waste (Freeganism, food banks, citizen associations, etc.).

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Environmental impacts Food production requires a lot of natural resources such as water, nutrients and land (FAO 2013). It also strains the environment, for example, by producing significant amounts of GHG emissions and releasing excessive nutrients to watersheds, soils and atmosphere. The rising levels of GHGs in the atmosphere are known to cause and accelerate the climate change which is causing severe problems in our biosphere (European Commission 2015c). For example in China and USA, food wastage is the third worst emitter of GHGs (FAO 2013). Also freshwater resources are increasingly scarce and a subject to an accelerating pollution as well (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2011). Agricultural production requires huge amounts of water being the main consumer of water resources around the world, mainly due to irrigation. Water depletion and salinization are some of the main environmental problems caused by irrigated agriculture (FAO 2013). Intensified agriculture releases significant amounts of reactive nitrogen to the environment and disrupts the natural nitrogen cycle (Grizzetti et al. 2013). Nitrogen acts as a nutrient and cause eutrophication of water bodies (European Commission 2015b). Eutrophication enhances the production of blue-green algae which leads to oxygen depletion and prevents the light penetration. All these factors affect the natural flora and fauna and thus, reducing biodiversity. In Europe, food waste contributes to about 12 % of the food production related nitrogen emissions to the environment (Grizzetti et al. 2013).

Greenhouse gas emissions of food waste Life cycle thinking is important when assessing the carbon footprint of food waste (FAO 2013). The carbon footprint of food waste includes also all the GHG emissions that are emitted during the food production phase. It’s expressed in kg CO2-eq including CH4 and N2O. According to FAO (2013), the overall carbon footprint of food wastage is approximately 500 million tonnes CO2-eq in Europe. It’s also high per capita and per year, almost 700 kg CO2-eq. In Europe, the wastage of vegetables and meat has the highest carbon footprint per capita but cereals account for only a couple of percent (3,2 %) of the total carbon footprint and food wastage. Another study (Katajajuuri et al. 2012) suggests that the size of carbon footprint in EU-27 would be only 170 million tonnes of CO2-eq, amounting to 3 % of total GHG emissions of this area. In Finland, the carbon footprint of food waste is almost 1 % of total annual GHG emissions: 500 to 1000 million kg CO2-eq at the food chain level (Silvennoinen et al. 2012). In Finnish households, the annual carbon footprint of waste is almost the same as the CO2 emissions of 100 000 cars. Vegetables are discarded in large amounts but animal derived products like dairy, meat and cheese have the highest carbon footprint. For example, the carbon footprint of discarded beef and pork is

20 one of the largest for food even though they contribute to only 4 % of food waste. The amount of cheese of total food waste is only a couple of percent but its carbon footprint is large as well (Silvennoinen et al. 2012). Landfilling biodegradable waste produces direct greenhouse gas emissions but in Finland the amount of those emissions have reduced. The reason for this is that less and less bio-waste is going to the landfills (European Environment Agency 2012). We chose three main crops for each country that we are studying (if the data is available): rice for Taiwan, wheat for France and barley for Finland. The unit we are using as an example is 100 kg of chosen product. The GHG emissions of rice during the whole lifecycle from production to waste disposal is 2,7 kg CO2-eq/1 kg of product. It means that throwing away 100 kg of rice produces about 270 kg CO2-eq in vain (Environmental Working Group 2011). No specific data for wheat and barley was found but we’ll do some calculations using a case study about producing these cereals. In this case study (HGCA 2012), the GHG emissions for 100 kg of wheat was 36 kg CO2eq and for 100 kg of barley malt 24 kg CO2-eq. unfortunately these numbers include only the agricultural production phase until transportation off site, not the consumer phase and so on. Water footprint Agricultural production is the biggest consumer of water resources, covering over 90 % of the total water footprint (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2012). FAO (2013) assumes that the water footprint (WFP) of food waste consists of the water usage in the agricultural phase only. The WFP includes blue, green and gray water, blue water being the most important factor in this situation. Blue water is water taken from the surface or groundwater (Hoekstra & Mekonnen 2012). The blue WFP of food wastage in Europe is rather small, less than 20 km3; per capita it is about 25 m3 (FAO 2013). Food waste from fruits is the largest consumer of blue water contributing to almost 50 % of the total amount. The blue WFP of cereals and meat is almost equal to the blue water footprint of fruits. Even though the cereal production is substantial in Europe, the WFP of food waste from cereals is rather small. High average yield is a probable reason for this (FAO 2013). For wheat, the blue WFP is 34 m3 per 100 kg and the total WFP is 183 m3 per 100 kg. Barley production is a bit less water intensive: the blue WFP is 8 m3 per 100 kg and the total WFP is 142 m3 per 100 kg (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2011). Specific data on production for wheat in France and barley in Finland wasn’t available so the global average WFP was used. For calculating the WFP for rice, we used the information from China due to lack of data. We assume that the environmental conditions are almost the same in Taiwan and, like FAO (2013), take account only the WFP of the agricultural production. The blue WFP of wasting 100 kg of rice is 49 m3 and the total WFP, including green and grey water, is 97 m3 (Chapagain & Hoekstra 2010).

21 Nitrogen footprint Table 2. shows that the nitrogen emissions from food waste is almost 1,1 TgN per year in EU-27. Food waste from cereals is responsible for over 25 % of the total nitrogen emissions (Grizzetti et al. 2013). Leip et al. (2013) presented information about the nitrogen footprint of vegetables in France and Finland. The definition of nitrogen footprint is: “The total direct N-losses to the environment that occur for the production of one unit of (food) product” and it includes factors such as fertilization, biological fixation of nitrogen and crop residues (Leip et al. 2013). In this study, the term vegetable includes cereals like wheat and barley and they assume that the nitrogen footprint within this group is the same. Only a partial life cycle analysis was conducted so that the retail and the consumer phase weren’t taken into account. Table 2. Nitrogen emissions from food and food waste to air, water and total per food group in EU-27 (Grizzetti et al. 2013).

22

Some rough estimations were done relating to the nitrogen footprint of cereal waste. In France, the nitrogen footprint of vegetables, depending on the model that has been used, is 300 to 570 g N per 100 kg product. The amount is quite bigger in Finland, 850 to 1100 g N per 100 kg (Grizzetti et al. 2013). Even though these numbers don’t include the whole life cycle after the consumer, we can now say some estimations of how much at least the wastage of these products strains the environment. There was no specific data about Taiwan so it’s impossible to make any assumptions.

Utilization and management of food waste Several terms are used for waste with a biological origin and they also differ between EU and Taiwan. In the EU bio-waste is defined as: “biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises, and comparable waste from food processing plants. It does not include forestry or agricultural residues, manure, sewage sludge, or other biodegradable waste such as natural textiles, paper or processed wood. It also excludes those by-products of food production that never become waste” (European Commission 2015d). This definition is problematic because repurposed food waste is not considered waste. The discussion of lessening wasting of resources through prevention, reuse and recycling, including food waste, is ongoing. The naming of waste streams is either derived from the origin of waste, as in the case of sewage sludge, or by its components (COM 2000/532/EC). Bio-waste or biodegradable solid waste (BSW) is a general term used for waste with a biological origin. Bio-waste comes in many different forms and varies in consistency from liquid to semi-solids and solids. Usually they are defined as waste water, bio-sludge or bio-waste, according to their consistency. Wastewaters are beyond the scope of this work but it should be noted that a considerable amount of food waste comes in the form of waste waters as mainly starch and sugars (van Ginkel et al. 2005). This liquid bio-waste comes mainly from the food processing and manufacturing industry. Generally speaking, if the source originated bio-waste classification is not taken into account, the major difference in classification by consistency is the difference in water content. In waste treatment facilities, bio-waste that has a lower content of solids than 15 % is considered to be biosludge, while bio-waste with a solids content higher than 15 % is considered to be bio-solids. There is no formal definition (MSW) that we would know about. In Taiwan, all bio-waste found in the municipal solid waste is considered to be food waste, even though it is most likely that there are some fractions that are not food waste. Thus the difference between definitions has caused some challenges. For example, all bio-sludges or bio-solids are often considered to be wastewater sludge, even though that is often not true (van Ginkel et al. 2005). Nevertheless, the general term

23 bio-waste, regardless of the origin of the waste, is more or less the same in the perspective of waste treatment.

Table 3. Currently available technology for the treatment of food waste. The environmental impacts and costs are relative to best and worst treatment method listed (EU DG Environment 2009, Levis et al. 2010, Demirbas et al. 2011, Fava et al. 2015). Treatment method

Cost

Products

Environmental impact

Challenges

Landfilling

low

none or methane

high

leachate, GHG emissions

Incineration

medium to high

heat, energy

medium

ash (5–15 % of waste)

Composting, MBT (Mechanical biological treatment) and home composting

low to medium

compost

low-medium

water treatment, source separation: plastics

AD (anaerobic digestion)

medium

methane, fertilizers

low to medium

water treatment, source separation: plastics

Feeding to animals

low

feed

low

source separation; only suitable for some food waste

Bioprocessing

very high

ethanol, nbutanol, methanol, bio-oil, dimethyl ether, proteins, fertilizers, fibers, medicine

low to high (highly dependent of process)

cost, new technology risk

24 It is mostly due to a matter of efficiency that most wet fractions are best fit for certain treatment methods and drier fractions are best suited for others. In conclusion bio-waste is not uniform nor its classification is exact, but the treatment methods are often robust and flexible and therefore suitable for a multitude of different wastes of biological origin (EU DG Environment 2009). Food waste, or more generally bio-waste, is treated with same methodologies and so in this part of the paper the same applies for bio-waste if it’s not explicitly mentioned that this is not the case (Table 3). In the EU-28, it is estimated that approximately 200 million tons of household bio-waste and 230 million tons of food processing waste is generated every year. Of this a 100 million tons is the amount of total food waste (COM 2008, Fava et al. 2015). Situation in the EU (Finland and France) Currently the landfill directive (1999/31/EC) restricts the landfilling of municipal BSW to 35 % of the 1995 levels by 2016. This is due to the heavy greenhouse gas emissions from the landfills. This regulation has changed the way bio-waste is treated in EU and the shift in many countries has been considerable: e.g. in Finland, the landfilled MSW has dropped almost 55 % in the last 10 years and it is expected to be lowered by 10 % per year, instead of the landfilling, the MSW is incinerated (OSF 2015). In the EU, there is an increasing pressure to change the treatment of the food waste and bio-waste to more environmental friendly ways of disposing waste (COM 2008, EU DG 2008). Table 4 shows different treatment methods of bio-waste in chosen countries. The waste hierarchy might be implemented separately for food waste (Table 4.). This would mean that disposal would be the least preferred method in the EU. Currently, the landfill directive does not promote other means, it only restricts the use of landfills for BSW. Therefore in many countries, the chosen treatment methods are incineration and still partly landfill, while disregarding the actual environmental benefits and the costs of the other treatment methods (EU DG 2008, Eurostat 2015). The incineration has a high capital cost so the countries that have invested in incineration probably will not change their treatment methods and they are to deal with the increasing amount of ash generated by incineration of waste in the future. The food waste discussion in the EU has changed the general views from disposal to other means but it is yet not certain what the implications for the future might be.

25 Table 4. The comparison of the treatment of bio-waste in the year 2012. The numbers also include the bio-waste (BSW) which is not source separated and it is within MSW, therefore the numbers are rough estimations. The BSW fraction of MSW accounts to the most of the bio-waste in incineration and landfill (France & Finland). For Taiwan, it has to be noted that not all people are within the waste collection service and the actual BSW might be higher per capita. Compiled from data of publications and datasets: (COM 2008, EU DG Environment 2009, Levis et al. 2010, R.O.C. 2010, Demirbas et al. 2011, Katajajuuri et al. 2014, Fava et al. 2015, Eurostat 2015, OSF 2015, and ADEME 2015).

2012

EU-28

France

Finland

Taiwan

Feeding to animals

0%

0%

0%

9.0 %

Biorefining

n.a.

1.0 %

5.0 %

1.0 %

AD (anaerobic digestion)

4.0 %

16 %

15 %

5%

Compost

24 %

20 %

30 %

10 %

MTB

17 %

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

Incineration

21 %

34 %

30 %

74 %

Landfill

33 %

29 %

25 %

1.0 %

Total bio-waste

100 Mton/a

11 Mtons/a

0,8 Mtons/a

3 Mtons/a

BSW per capita

198 kg/person

169 kg/person

148 kg/person

128 kg/person

The situation in Taiwan In Taiwan, there has been a great improvement in the solid waste handling after implementing a series of waste regulations in 2002. Since 1980s, the lack of landfill capacity led to a waste crisis because there was just not enough space in the island nation for more landfills. In the year 1984, only 2,6 % of the MSW was properly disposed. The government failed to solve the waste problems by large-scale incineration because of the firm opposition of local communities. This led the government to adopt goals and programs for waste prevention and recycling. In 2005, TEPA launched a program under the Waste Disposal Act, which encouraged people to and sort wastes into three categories: recyclables, food waste and residual waste (MSW). The fraction of food waste recycled raised considerably from 0 to 9,6 % from 2000 to 2012. By the

26 year of 2011, almost all waste in the urban areas were within waste collection system. Since the start of the programs, the total amount of waste has declined almost to half and the landfill disposal has been almost eliminated (R.O.C. 2010). These regulations included Waste Disposal Act and numerous subsidies to waste handling. Food waste with high moisture is regulated to be treated separately, and usually divided into two parts: one for swine feeding and the rest goes for compost. Reuse rates between swine feeding and composting accounts for 68 % and 32 % of collected food waste respectively. There have been some troubles with the impacts TRF program. Firstly, incomplete separation causes some parts of food waste remain to be incinerated. Secondly food waste as swine feeding may cause a potential risk of infection pigs. A public paper reported a risk of hepatitis (Chang et al. 2013) and some pig farmers rejected the food waste influenced by a hepatitis epidemic in 2009. Currently, all waste related operations or researches are eligible for 50 % subsidy from the government if they are in line with the TEPA objectives (R.O.C. 2010). For food waste, there has been a special program that focuses on raising the food waste reuse rate from 10 % to even higher. Currently, the BSW is approximately 20–30 % of the MSW. The current waste disposal is dominated by over 70 % of incineration (Table 4.). Food waste is rather problematic in incineration because of the water content of over 70 % that causes a high energy usage. Therefore there is a trend to move towards to anaerobic digestion (AD) treatment and other ways to deal with the food waste. As in many countries, the rural areas are often not within the waste collection service and dumping is therefore allowed outside the urban areas. Nevertheless, the waste handling has dramatically improved and it seems that this development is going even further. In conclusion, the treatment methods for bio-waste in EU comparison are quite similar. The major difference is that there is already a considerable biorefining sector in Finland that produces chemicals and fuel from food waste (Table 4). Taiwan has undergone a major undertaking to renew the waste management and now the focus has shifted to better treatment of food waste (R.O.C. 2010). In Taiwan, the majority of food waste is incinerated. In all countries, there are still a lot of BSW in the MSW that causes problems in the disposal of MSW and makes it difficult to recycle the resources within the food waste. MTB or better source separation could partly fix this issue but e.g. MTB in Finland this is impossible because of the legal reasons. The BSW fraction that is in MSW is seen as environmentally harmful waste and this prohibits the utilization of bio-waste fraction that is in the MSW in Finland (Finnish Waste law 2011/646). This might explain the rather high numbers of landfilling and incineration in France and Finland.

27 The future of food waste The amount of food waste is growing steadily in the EU and globally (EU DG 2009, HLPE 2014, and Eurostat 2015). The food waste hierarchy sets an objective to lower the amount of waste disposal and strives to achieve this mainly through waste prevention and utilization. This has raised an interest to use food waste as a feedstock for biorefining. Currently, the world market of biobased products has expanded from 77 to 92 billion € from 2005 to 2010 and the highest estimate for 2020 is at 515 billion € (without biofuels) (Fava et al. 2015). The second generation biofuels are estimated to be worth $ 23,9 billion by 2020 and they are produced by using mainly soft fiber agricultural residues and food waste (Mallick 2014). These trends highlight the importance of the bio-waste or food waste as a resource and this might mean that the economic interest towards food waste as a resource is rising swiftly. Will there be a situation in the future where there is less incentive to reduce food waste if it becomes important resource for the bio-based products market?

Table 5. Some examples of Finnish biorefineries that utilize food waste (Environmental regulatory reports of Finland, OSF 2015). Feedstock

Production

By products

ST1 Hämeenlinna

15 000 t/a food waste

1000 t/a ethanol

2500 CH4 t/a

ST1 Jokioinen

Cereals based waste 120 000 t/a (20 % d.m.)

9300 t/a ethanol

40 000 t/a feed

ST1 Lahti

9000 t/a food waste

900 t/a ethanol

5500 t/a feed

Neste Oil NextBTL Porvoo 1 & 2

12 000 t/a waste oils (FIN) 388 000 tons oils (abroad)

AD facilities (over 10)