Al Amin :
The waste management is yet to be introduced in order to re-use food waste, despite it has already been adopted in some other sectors of the country.
According to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report revealed in March this year, households in Bangladesh waste some 10.62 million tonnes of food every year.
The overwhelming quantity is a huge concern for mankind, especially when about 820 million people go hungry every day globally.
In Bangladesh, food is exhausted in different ways. It is done during harvesting and cooking and at dinner. Especially, hotels, restaurants and large gatherings like weddings and parties serve more food to a man than he or she needs, leading to colossal food waste.
The government has formulated National 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) waste policy recently, although the food sector still remains untouched.
But many value added goods could be produced from the re-use of the waste as well as solve the nutritional challenge across food system, experts said.
In this case, the hotel-restaurants and large gathering can use non-perishable and perishable beans to preserve the waste in order to produce versatile range of products including a fruit mix juice powder, potent supplement for poultry industry and biofertilizers.
A new policy has been adopted in China to help the country to reduce a significant amount of food losses, they said.
Dr Khaleda Islam, Professor and Director of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, told The New Nation, “Reduction of food waste is a must to ensure food security. Waste management systems have already been introduced in some other sectors in the country. So, the food sector should not be ignored.”
“Food waste disposal system can be introduced across the country with a view to reducing and reusing the unused food,” she said.
The UNEP study entitled “Food Waste Index Report 2021” also said homes are responsible for most of the food waste as 61 per cent of total food waste was generated from households, while 26 per cent was from food services and 13 per cent from retails.
Dr Md Jahangir Alam, Professor at the Department of Agriculture Economics of Bangladesh Agriculture University, Mymensingh, said food wastage is basically happening because of a lack of awareness among people.
“Food is mainly wasted during marriage ceremony, picnic, at restaurants. We also see post-harvest wastages of fresh vegetables and fruits during transportation and storage,” he said.
He also said, this incident gives a message that Bangladesh needs to enact a law to restraint food waste.
Food-laden trucks should get priority on roads. A lesson should be incorporated into textbooks to raise awareness about food wastage right from childhood, he added.
Imran Hasan, General Secretary of Bangladesh Restaurant Owners’ Association, said on an average 20-25 Kg foods are generated from a hotel every day and having no policy, these are dumped at garbage.
