TheCity

Tag: food waste

  • How Does Food Waste Contribute to Climate Change? 

    How Does Food Waste Contribute to Climate Change? 

    Food waste is something that isn’t mentioned as often when speaking about the climate crisis, as it is only accounting for 10% of the total percentage with the climate crisis.  

    The main issue with food waste is the significant resource waste it uses to bring your food from fork to plate, but also the carbon monoxide emissions. Deforestation is another major consequence for the ever-growing demand on the agriculture sector. 

    On a global scale, the average number of hectares of forests lost is 10 million each year. This happens everywhere but is most apparent in tropical forests in Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  

    Climate activist Arielle Calajate, who is involved in multiple eco-friendly initiatives said, “People don’t realise how truly important the trees are to the climate, and responsible for a lot of what food we can eat. They give us fruits, nuts, healthy soil for food, a water cycle regulation, and pollination. So many important things are given to us by trees.” 

    Ireland’s deforestation rate is historically low for 2024, with only 670 hectares of trees lost. From 2001 to 2023, Ireland wasn’t as lucky and lost a total of 161,000 hectares of trees. For the small isle of Ireland, it meant we had lost 19 per cent of our national tree coverage from 2000 onwards. 

    According to Calajate,“by cutting down trees to provide us with more food, we are effectively hurting the one thing that is helping to keep everything okay. This is something the earth has been doing for centuries, long before we started abusing it.” 

    Statistics released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that Ireland has wasted over 835,000 tonnes of food waste in 2023. This means that the average weight of food waste for a person in Ireland is 162kg. Ireland’s food wastage is higher than the European average, which is 132kg per person.  

    Statistics released by The Central Statistics Office (CSO) stated that food and non-alcoholic drinks increased in waste from 4.7% in the beginning of 2025. It is now at 5.0% in September 2025. 

    When you keep food in a highly acidic environment of vinegar or brine, it can add to the shelf life of that food for months, when they are properly preserved and sealed. This way of preserving food helps to prevent spoiling by preventing bacteria from growing.  

    Statistics by the Environmental Protection Agency mention that global food waste accounts for 8-10% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. When food is disposed of in landfills, it releases methane gas, which is a potent gas with a climate warming potential that is 84 times higher than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. 

    There is no problem with the usage of agricultural land to produce food for the growing population, the problem lies in large percentages of these patches of land are used to grow food which is not consumed and wastes valuable resources.  

    Research done by the World Bank Organisation found that around 70% of the world’s water usage is used for food. This makes food a significant waste of freshwater and groundwater resources. Another resource used is the energy consumption, as 38% of the total energy used globally for food, is for food that is never eaten. 

    Your own impact on food waste can be a big help to stop the growing problem of food waste and its depletion of natural resources, and most are decisions that can be made at home. Buy in smaller quantities, if possible, from your local markets. 

  • What a waste – A rubbish situation on Dublin streets

    What a waste – A rubbish situation on Dublin streets

    By Mark Donlon

    Dublin City Council have 3,200 bins in operation within its jurisdiction.  Of these bins, there are none which cater for waste other than solid rubbish.

    The figure of 3,200 bins is an approximation based on the number of bins Dublin City Council (DCC) say tend to be in operation at any one time. Of that total number, there is an estimated 1,170 bins situated in either Dublin 1 or Dublin 2, the postal codes which represent Dublin’s North and South inner city respectively.

    According to Simon Brock of DCC’s Waste Management Services, there is no segregated litter bin system in place in these areas.

    Photo Credit: Geograph.ie

    “The number of City Centre facilities for waste disposal other than solid rubbish is around the 100 mark,” explained Brock. “Of those facilities, the vast majority would be bring centres and bottle banks at civic amenity sites.

    “Segregated bins for rubbish disposal of all types were trialed a number of years ago with no success and then last year another trial was carried out with segregated bins placed in locations on Wolfe Tone Square and South King Street, but again it didn’t work.”

    The most damning culprit for the trial system was one which has been running the gauntlet in recent years. “In the case of 2018, coffee cups were the biggest contaminant,” said Brock.

    Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

    Despite the unsuccessful attempts to combat inadequate city waste disposal, Dublin City Council plans to make another attempt at solving this problem come 2020. They also plan to tackle the amount of waste from the city going to landfill.

    “Roughly 10% of all waste collected in the City Centre ends up in landfill,” said Brock. “That’s a figure we always want to decrease.”

    So what is the message from Dublin City Council?

    While the council must devise a more simplistic improvement which makes correct waste disposal easier for the urban population, the urban population also must react accordingly and make proper use of improved facilities.

  • Food waste: A problem we produce but don’t talk about

    Food waste: A problem we produce but don’t talk about

    Image: Ross Mc Govern
    Image: Ross Mc Govern Mass amounts of waste

    In Ireland we produce about one million tonnes of food waste annually and if we give each tonne a value of roughly €2000 that equates to over €2 billion of food not being used and going in the bin. It is also estimated that 600,000 people experience some form of food poverty in this country.

    We are ranked fifth worst in Europe for dealing with the problem. Figures like these make sense to people, however many just furrow their brows and make solemn sounds and agree that things are bad, but until you actually see vast quantities of food being thrown out you don’t really understand the situation.

    Image: Ross Mc Govern
    Image: Ross Mc Govern Food in a waste bin in a supermarket

    Picture this: a chicken is born on a factory farm and reared along with a few thousand others. Once it is of killable age it is slaughtered, gutted, beheaded and de-feathered. It comes into a supermarket, via an 18 wheel articulated truck, and is prepared and put into an oven. This roast chicken is then left on a hot counter waiting for someone to buy it, if this doesn’t happen it is put into a trolley at the end of the night and dumped into a bin along with all the other food waste. The chicken’s life has been completely pointless. It has served no function and now only rots.

    In the shop where I work about €4,000 is thrown in the bin every week and this number rises sharply around Christmas to over €10,000. In case you’re wondering, yes I’ve seen whole turkeys being thrown out after the people who ordered the bird got theirs somewhere else. The situation has gotten better over the last few years. The ‘display until’ and ‘sell by’ dates have nearly all been removed from packing, these dates are used to make the stock controller’s job easier. The ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates are now the only form of shelf life indication that products have. Food manufactures are inclined to be very cautious when creating these dates for their products as it removes liability for them in case somebody were to ingest spoiled goods. God forbid anyone just used their nose. Fun fact: even ice that has been stored in a freezer has a best before date.

    Image: Ross Mc Govern
    Image: Ross Mc Govern Past the sell by goods are simply thrown out

    There are community based social enterprises that have been set up to combat both problems of food waste and hunger. One of them is foodcloud.ie set up by co-founders Iseult Ward and Aoibheann O’Brien and chef Sophie Morris. It works via a smartphone app or the website.

    A supermarket or restaurant uploads details of their surplus and when the food can be collected. A text is then sent to the nearest community organisation in the area, they accept the offer and collect it directly from the business. Iseult ward’s sees things clearly “one in every four calories produced from food in the world, is wasted. “We want Irish people to think about how they can reduce this waste”.

    Solutions like foodcloud.ie are fantastic but supermarkets are wary of giving away their waste as the fear of someone getting sick looms over their waste policies. Put simply, if half a carrot is a bit soft it can’t just be chopped up and the offending half thrown away, the whole thing needs to be chucked. Many of the organisations wishing to tackle the problem often state that “uncertain demand” in what supermarkets buy contributes to the problem and that reducing this more money can be saved.

    From being on the ground I would have to state that supermarkets accept that they will produce waste and if they remain competitive in their national market, then that means that waste will continue to be produced. Until Irish people are willing to talk about how much food is thrown out in their own houses, the glut that fills this “uncertain demand” will continue to grow in our landfills.