Ban Supermarkets From Throwing Away Unused Food

France has become the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food, forcing them instead to donate it to charities and food banks. There is food banks in most towns and cities across the UK and like France the wasted food could be donated to them.

Almost 50% of total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our home. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this food and drink we could've eaten and this 7 million tonnes of food wasted is equal to over £17,000,000,000 of worth of food each year, yes you heard me £17,000,000,000 which could be all given to those in need.

It is also terrible for the enviroment. It takes a land mass larger than China to grow the food each year that is ultimately never eaten – land that has been deforested, species that have been driven to extinction, indigenous populations that have been moved, soil that has been degraded – all to produce food that we then just throw away. In addition, food that is never eaten accounts for 25% of all fresh water consumption globally. Gulp.

Not only are all of the resources that went into creating the uneaten food wasted (land, water, labour, energy, manufacturing, packaging, etc), but when food waste goes to landfill, which is where the vast majority of it ends up, it decomposes without access to oxygen and creates methane, which is 23x more deadly than carbon dioxide.

Every which way you look at it food waste is a major culprit in destroying our planet, and in fact if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the USA.

Millions upon millions people are starving every year all around the world and we all will be affected by global warming,that's over 7,00,000,000 people! Saving these unused foods can resolve this problem immensely.