Want not waste not – Responsible consumption and production

By Jespal Singh Sidhu | ENVIRONMENT |

Having just been a moderator recently for a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) atlas review at University Malaya, I realised that a lot of what we do daily is related to the 17 goals that have been set forth by the United Nations in 2015. We, the population of the world, have until 2030 to realise these goals. Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production was the topic of that day.

Why responsible consumption and production and not the other way around? Are we not all creatures of need? Ideas, wants and needs fuel production. The industrial revolution in the 18th century was fueled by ideas, wants and needs. Some economists say that, this lead to increased standards of living and sustainable GDP growth per capita in some of the capitalist economies. From that period onwards, the world never looked back. More wants and needs, in other words, more consumerism which lead to more and more production. Well, we have our answer.

At what expense was that rapid growth in consumerism? Were the consumers of the 18th century and inventors from that period concerned about resources? Were producers of that era concerned about resources? Consumption leads to production and when we, the humankind, were rapidly developing from the 18th century onwards, natural resources and man-made resources were being exploited to sustain the demand of the consumers.

Memories of growing up in Ipoh and Teluk Intan – “Finish everything on your plate”; “Don’t waste food”; my dad and I making my study table using old planks; taking a rattan basket and years later, a red plastic basket to the market; and buying our soup and curry noodles in a yellow enamel cup with green edges; later to be replaced with plastics with pink raffia string punched through it to act as a handle; our chicken rice in a three-tier metal tiffin carrier; putting food waste into a pot and covering it up with soil layer by layer for one to two months and then using this to plant bougainvillea, okra, papaya and chilies.

I did not remember my parents using fancy terms such as 5R – Refuse, Rethink, Reduce Reuse Recycle, zero waste, biodegradable, composting, upcycling, upscaling materials, waste to wealth, or reduce plastic usage, but what they practised and taught my sister and I can surely can fit into these categories.

We, in Malaysia, surely love our food. Let us look at this from a responsible consumption and production viewpoint. How many times have we attended buffet lunches, high teas, and dinners, be it for weddings, festive celebrations or company events and have left uneaten food on our plates or have taken extra plates of food and left these uneaten on the tables? Have we all not opened the fridge to find the leafy vegetables wilting and completely soft? Have we not bought packets of biscuits, cookies, teas, coffee and kept them in the larder till they were completely forgotten and only noticed three to four months after the use-by date?

As Asians, we are culturally taught that wasting and throwing food away is not encouraged. My visits to certain Asian countries enforce this belief strongly, yet, I see it so often here in Malaysia.

The above statistics show that the largest contributor towards food waste in Malaysia are households despite us probably having the notion that it is the hotels and restaurants.

Research by SWCorp in the year 2017 indicates that an average household with 5 members spends an average of RM900 per month on food only and on average one fourth of this is wasted which amounts to RM225 worth of food being thrown away into the garbage bin every month. An alarming figure indeed!

We are all familiar, especially those of us with children, of the trips to the drive-thru of some of the fast food outlets and purchasing items such as burgers, fried chicken, and French fries. Scenarios like these happen more often than not – once we reach home one child who is not at home comes back and declares that he/she has already eaten and the burger that we bought for him/her is kept in the fridge with the understanding that it can be eaten the next day. A day goes by, two days go by, three days go by and a child decides to eat the burger that is in the fridge. That child then discovers that the burger is really soggy and mushy and there is a strange smell probably due to the vegetables getting rotten. Is it suitable for consumption? Can some components of it be eaten and some discarded? At this point, a decision is made to throw away the burger into the garbage bin.

What is wasted when we throw away that burger? Obviously it is the meat patty, the bun, the vegetables and sauce/mayonnaise/ketchup that goes into making the burger.

A lot has been written on the amount of food waste and food loss. Here, I want to explore further. Have we thought beyond this? Well, when I was asked this, I wondered and asked, “What do you mean?” The answer was, yes, the meat is thrown, the bun is thrown, the vegetables are thrown but what goes into getting these items from the farm to the dining table? Upon throwing away the burger aren’t those items wasted too?

Let’s look at the components of a basic burger:

1. 150 grams of beef
2. 20 grams of tomato
3. 10 grams of lettuce
4. 15 grams of cheese
5. 10 grams of onions
6. 40 grams of bun
7. Some sauce/mayonnaise/ketchup
8. Heat to cook the meat patty and toast the bun
9. Energy to produce and transport items 1 to 7, energy (cooling) to store the vegetables and meat

Below are some figures based on studies done in the US on the amount of natural resources consumed for the production of the components that go into a burger:

1. Land required to produce one kg of beef: 323 square feet; Water required to produce one kg of beef: 15,400 liters

2. Land required to produce one kg of cheese: 323 square feet (based on one milk producing cow); Water required to produce one kg of cheese: 5,000 liters

3. Land required to produce one kg of onions: 20 square feet; Water requited to produce one kg of onions: 170 liters

4. Land required to produce one kg of tomatoes: 20 square feet; Water required to produce one kg of tomatoes: 214 liters

5. Land required to produce one kg of lettuce: 20 square feet; Water required to produce one kg of lettuce: 125 liters

6. Land required to produce one kg of bread: 36 square feet (based on 4 cups of flour per 250 grams
loaf); Water required to produce one kg of bread: 1608 liters

Now, based on the above, we can calculate what goes in to getting a burger from the farm to the dining table. It is a real eye-opener and rather jaw-dropping to calculate the amount of resources (natural and otherwise) that go into producing a single burger:

The approximate amount of land that is required to produce a burger: 55.59 square feet based on some amount of rounding off). Imagine the amount of burgers that would be required to fill up this area? Imagine a burger being about 4-by-4 inches, which is 16 square inches. This would equal 500 burgers to fill up that space of 55.59 square feet.

Based on the calculations, approximately 2455.48 liters of water is consumed to produce a burger. That equals to 4911 bottles of 500ml of mineral water which is 205 crates of 24 such bottles.

What other resources are consumed to get the burger from the farm to the dining table?

1. Farm hands’ energy
2. Diesel/electricity – farm machinery
3. Diesel to transport – cow and vegetables
4. Resources at the slaughter house/burger manufacturing plant (electricity/water/ workers)
5. Transportation – diesel and cooling for meat and vegetables
6. Energy to store (cooling)
7. Energy to cook the burger and to bake the bun

Now, when we throw away the three to four day old soggy burger, give a thought to the amount of resources that we are also wasting along with the burger and what we can do to reduce the actual food waste/loss and the unseen waste.

This article is written to provoke the thought that wasting food is beyond that food item itself but also encompasses the resources (natural or otherwise) to produce that food item from the farm and to bring it to the dining table. Is there food waste at the farm level? Is there food waste during transportation? Is there something, we, as consumers can do to reduce and relook at food waste and loss? Can we reduce the amount of food waste and food loss that ends up at the landfills?

Jespal Singh Sidhu, a real estate negotiator and an avid gardener, produces compost on a commercial scale which he supplies to farms, fruit orchards and home gardening enthusiasts. He is passionate about sustainability, waste management, separation at source organic waste management and environmental related topics. He is available to guide Gurdawaras to reduce carbon footprint. He can be contacted at compost.sprout@gmail.com

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