Planning a Campaign to Reduce, Redistribute and Recycle Food Waste in Singapore

Planning a Campaign to Reduce, Redistribute and Recycle Food Waste in Singapore

In 2010, Singapore threw away 0.64 million tonnes of food waste and only 16% was recycled. This means that on average, each person in Singapore generated about 126kg of food waste a year. This is common throughout the world and according to a 2011 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 1.3 billion tonnes or one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year gets lost or wasted.

Food waste has several environmental and social impacts, and represents a waste of resources used in food production, distribution and disposal, such as land, water, energy, fertilisers, labour and capital, and produces unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change. The food wasted could be used to feed the poor and the nearly one billion malnourished people in the world.

To tackle this problem of food waste, we are thinking of organising a campaign to reduce food waste in Singapore. The campaign would aim to help consumers, households, food outlets, retailers, caterers, food distributors, and food manufacturers in Singapore understand the environmental and social impacts of our food cycle, and take actions to reduce, redistribute and recycle food waste in Singapore.

We are still in the process of conceptualising the campaign and trying to get sponsors, and will share more about the campaign later. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas and suggestions, do share them with us. Thanks!

Update: Check out the food waste campaign – Save Food Cut Waste

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9 Comments

  • byTitus
    Posted February 7, 2012 3:49 pm 0Likes

    Some supermarkets or finer supermarkets and even hypermarts throw many kgs of blemish vegetables…I dont know whether they are safe for consumption but I think they can be composted to make our soil more fertile but this incurs cost and there is great inconvenience to do so… I used to work at some supermarkets(can’t be named), there was once the cleaner wanted to take the dump vege and fruits but the management does not allow it, for the finer marts some of the expensive salads when they reach their expiry dates or though it still looks good, it has to be destroy or written off and not given away…reason being they want people(customers and staff) to buy and not given at a lower price, recycling the vege is also great inconvenience due to the hectic schedule of things to be done by the staff some times staff is also limited…

    • byEugene Tay
      Posted February 8, 2012 9:28 am 0Likes

      @Titus, thanks for sharing, would plan to engage those supermarkets and see how they can reduce food waste.

  • byJia En
    Posted February 28, 2012 7:20 pm 0Likes

    Hi, I’m an environmentally conscious student trying to develop a plan on how to reduce the amount of food that goes into landfills. I’m thinking of reducing this quantity at it’s source, ie. purchase of too much food, channelling leftover food to whoever needs it, and processing the residual waste to compost rather than contributing it to the landfill.
    I’d like to work with you. Could I ask how far you have developed your plan?

    • byEugene Tay
      Posted February 29, 2012 12:06 pm 0Likes

      @Jia En, thanks for your interest. Will keep you informed when our plan is firmed up.

  • byScott Kim
    Posted March 7, 2012 4:47 pm 0Likes

    Hi,this is Scott Kim from Korea. I am working in the company of waste food treatment machine. I am very interested in the reduction of waste food so we are developing the waste food decomposer. The reduction rate is approximate 80~90%. Recently Korea Government made a law to pay the money(tax) based on the waste food weight. Finally it will be total IT system by using RF-ID technology and some local government already adopted this system on trial.
    I think our country will be good role model.

  • byRosalie Ariston
    Posted April 17, 2012 10:13 pm 0Likes

    A few months ago, I asked one of the hawker centre stalls, if I could collect their vegetable scraps for my compost bin… For about a couple of weeks, she obliged, until my bin was full.

    It got me thinking why not establish a ‘green waste’ collection bin at hawker centres (like some have for the drink cans)…

    Recently, I happened upon some info for Black Soldier Fly Larvae Composter/Harvester (compost tea). Black Soldier Fly Larvae seem to eat anything!! Now, if the green waste went into industrial-sized BSF Harvesters/composters–all the chicken & fish farms would all be singing Hallelujah! And image the benefits of the compost tea… How about a pilot-project for one of our local market?

  • bykimira
    Posted July 26, 2012 12:30 pm 0Likes

    Its a great idea. I do direct composting with my weekly vegetable peels for my flower pots. Put peels in the blender, blend and then pour them in the soil. But this is only for uncooked vegetable waste.

  • byAshlee
    Posted July 31, 2012 10:15 pm 0Likes

    Hi Eugene, may I know roughly how much a percentage fruit peels are in food waste in Singapore?

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