Memes about forgotten produce wilting in the fridge are perennially popular on social media, reflecting the fact that it happens often because it's easy to fall into that trap.
At the same time, rising food prices reported, South Korea's unique approach to food waste could be instructive in this regard.
According to the World Economic Forum once had a high rate of food waste, but its landfills began to approach capacity in the 1990s. A series of comprehensive reforms followed, including a 2005 ban on food waste in landfills.
As The Guardian noted, though tons of food rot while hunger is rampant, food waste is not purely a problem of mismanaged resources.
The outlet cited a 2024 United Nations Environment Programme report indicating that a billion meals go uneaten each day worldwide. A billion tons of food are wasted each year as well.
In addition to wasting resources, landfilled food pollution contains methane, which heats the planet 50 percent more effectively than carbon dioxide.
Annually, food waste is responsible for up to 10% of global emissions. That's "almost five times that of the aviation sector," and contributes to "significant biodiversity loss by taking up the equivalent of almost a third of the world's agricultural land," the UNEP emphasized.
As South Korea contended with increasing limitations on how and where to process waste, the country and its citizens had to act. Radio frequency identification waste cans debuted "in the early 2010s," weighing discarded food.
In 2013 recycled a staggering 96.8% of nearly five million tons of food waste.
The Guardian described Seoul resident Min Geum-nan's visit to a digitized food waste recycling bin near her apartment complex. Min deposited a small amount of vegetable peel weighing 0.5 kilograms, or a little over a pound.
She told the outlet that simply seeing the weight of food waste nudged South Koreans to be aware of it (though the fees likely helped). Most people worked to minimize food scraps as a result.
"If you don't remove water, it gets expensive. People press it, drain it, and even use strainers. You learn your own tricks," Min explained. "If the family leaves food, I make less next time. You start thinking differently."
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