Can you cut 1 Tonne of carbon pollution out of your life?
Take the challengeThe land of baguettes, croissants and the Moulin Rouge have banned supermarkets from wasting food and it is amazing!
Supermarkets in France are to be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food, instead they must donate it to charities or to feed animals. Aimed at minimising food waste, any unsold food must be repurposed!
According to the Guardian:
Those with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft (400 sq m) or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to €75,000 (£53,000) or two years in jail.
It's scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods,- said the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot, who proposed the bill.
The annual food waste in France is estimated at 20-30kg per person, which amounts to a national price of €20 billion. This recent legislation is a step toward the nation's ongoing initiative to halve their food waste by 2025.
Recently, the French media have exposed how poor families, students, unemployed or homeless people often forage in supermarket bins at night. This has caught off in Australia too as "dumpster diving". This only proves that people are healthily able to survive on edible products thrown out as their best-before dates approached.
However, supermarkets have tried to prevent this, they even doused binned food in bleach, or deliberately binned food in locked warehouses in order to stop these "scavengers". Thus, the new legislation is a solution, making this food legally available to those in need.
This is an amazing step! If we could lobby our own governments around the world to do the same, the results would be incredible!
What you can do
Reduce wasting food by managing it better every day
Up to 30% of food we buy is wasted, at an estimated national cost of $5 billion-plus a year. Cut down on waste by not letting food go out of date, avoiding over-catering and looking after any leftovers.
1,878
Tonnes of CO2
savings pledged
savings pledged
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