How much food has Italy wasted in 2020

BRUSSELS. Today food costs a lot and for many it becomes more and more a luxury. But before the war in Ukraine and everything that came with it, it was even an excess. So much so that in 2020 every inhabitant of the European Union threw 127 kilos of food generals in the trash. Wastes that in Italy have also reached the peak of 146 kilos per citizen. Scarce attention to basic necessities on which the EU is starting to turn the spotlight on.

For the first time Eurostat publishes these special data, which the European Commission wanted them to start collecting with the delegated act of 2019. “The measurement of food waste has a key role to play in the strategies for reducing food waste”, they remind in Brussels. . If the goal is to reverse the phenomenon of food in the bin, first you need to know it. The first available data, referring to 2020, indicate that it is mainly families who empty the dishes into the bin instead of into the stomach. On average, of the 127 kilos per capita wasted, 70 kilos are the result of bad habits at home. Customs and habits that involve the Italians, second in the EU for domestic waste (107 kilos per person). Worse only the Portuguese families (124 kilos each in a year). These are the only two cases with three-digit data.

Be careful, however, because the first collection data does not ask for an assumption of greater awareness and responsibility from ordinary citizens. Also on the supply side, it is necessary to change the register given that at the EU aggregate level, families have generated 55% of food waste, but the remaining 45% is made up of waste generated in the food supply chain. “Given its important environmental and economic impacts, the prevention of food waste and the need to adopt a more sustainable production and consumption model is a priority area of ​​the EU action plan for the circular economy”, cannot do without recalls the community executive. For now, nothing can be asked. The next data, those relating to waste in 2021, will be published on the calendar in exactly one year, again in October.

The EU begins to embark on a process of renewal, given that the fight against food waste “remains a challenge both at European and world level”, as the Eurostat note accompanying the data states. We therefore want to set a good example. The paradox of the war and the rise in food prices is that the increase on the shelves could contribute to awareness and initiate the reduction of food waste that the EU has taken seriously.