onsdag den 28. september 2016

The Huffington Post - Do We Really Need A Food Waste Police?

by Selina Juul, Founder of Stop Wasting Food movement Denmark 

published on The Huffington Post on September 28th 2016 -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/selina-juul/do-we-really-need-a-food-_b_12108406.html


Recently, the laws against food waste are starting to gain momentum. France and Italy have already implemented the laws against food waste. The governments in UK, Finland, Canada and Chile are already looking into it. And several large petitions are set off to influence the EU politicians in hope of implementing the laws agains food waste all across the EU.

But if we take a closer look into these laws, one might wonder: is the “Food Waste Police” the right approach in the fight against food waste?

Arash Derambarsh is a very sympathetic and enthusiastic French politician, whom I’ve had a privilege of speaking with in several panel debates at congresses and food summits, the recent one was an international food summit in Copenhagen “Better Food for More People” arranged by the Danish Ministry for the Environment and Food. Mr. Derambarsh is the “father” of the law against food waste, which was adopted in France. And he is going an excellent job in that field, I might add.

Due to this new French law, all larger supermarkets and hypermarkets in France are obliged to give all of their surplus food to the local charities - if not, they will be fined 75,000 Euro - or even face a jail sentence.

The new French law caused massive international media attention and thousands of cheerful remarks on the social media. The “big bad supermarkets” will at last be punished, the surplus food will be redirected to the needy and the problem with food waste will be solved once and for all.

Well, will it really?

In my recent joint opinion editorial co-written with the Minister for Environment and Food of Denmark Mr. Esben Lunde Larsen and Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate of Denmark Mr. Lars Christian Lilleholt, we addressed the French law. During the last 8 years, Denmark has already made a tremendous progress in the fight against food waste - and the Danish Government, industry, retailers and NGO’s are not very keen on this French law.

The French law looks interesting, but when we zoom in, it dosen’t really solve the problem with food waste.

If a law like this will be implemented in a country like Denmark, the charities will literally drown in food. The supermarkets will be obliged to give the charities all their surplus food, in fear of fines or going to jail - and this will leave the charities stranded with huge amounts of surplus food and vey small resources to make sure that the food will be redirected to the needy citizens. Already today, these Danish charities have very limited funding, infrastructure and resources. By receiving some over 163,000 tones of supermarkets’ annual surplus food, they will have much difficulties with saving these huge amounts of food from going to waste.

Thus, the problem is only pushed further on down the value chain and the root cause - the overproduction of food - is not addressed.

This makes the law against food waste a short term solution.

By that I am not implying that we must stop helping the needy and socially disadvantaged citizens with access to free surplus food. We must do whatever we can. Since 2010, the Stop Wasting Food movement Denmark and partners rescued and redirected over 250 tons of free surplus food to charities in Denmark. Good free, surplus food ended in people’s bellies instead of going to waste.

If we take a look from the helicopter perspective, the fight against food waste today counts a large amount of symptom treatment initiatives, from food waste events to food waste supermarkets and food waste restaurants. All these initiatives are good, important and awareness raising. However, they do not address the root cause.

A lot of food waste must be generated in order to keep a food waste supermarket or a food waste restaurant operating. And thus, the overproduction is still there, every day, year by year - and the fight against food waste itself is becoming an industry.

But if we really need fulfill the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 - to halve per capita all the food losses and waste by 2030 - (and that’s just in 14 years!) - we must take a look at the rood cause, we must address the prevention of food waste.

Implementing a law against food waste and thus pushing the food waste further down the value chain will never create a long lasting solution.

onsdag den 14. september 2016

Dagbladet Information - En dråbe i plastikhavet

af Selina Juul, stifter af forbrugerbevægelsen Stop Spild Af Mad

bragt i Dagbladet Information den 14. september 2016 -
https://www.information.dk/indland/2016/09/draabe-plastikhavet


Skal bananer, som fra naturens side er emballeret med en skræl, pakkes yderligere ind i plastik? Det mener nogle forskere. Alt imens vinder emballagefri supermarkeder så småt frem.

Ifølge Worldwatch Institute har menneskeheden de sidste 10 år produceret mere plastik end i hele sidste århundrede.

Omkring 500 mia. plastikposer bliver brugt verden over hvert år mere end en mio. plastikposer hvert minut. Mellem fire og 12 mio. ton plastik ender ifølge tidsskriftet Science hvert år i verdenshavene og mængden ventes at blive fordoblet over de næste ti år.

De større stykker plastikaffald hober sig op til flydende øer på størrelse med et land, mens de små stykker plastikaffald, mikroplastik, bliver spist af dyr og fisk.

Plastikemballage er en uundgåelig del af vores hverdag, men fokus på samt initiativer for at mindske brug af emballage er også voksende. Flere lande begynder nu at overveje forbud mod plastikposer. Det er måske en dråbe i plastikhavet, men det er da en start.

I Frankrig og i mange sydeuropæiske lande kan man ofte købe madvarer i løsvægt. Dette har dannet grundlag for Københavns første emballagefri supermarked, LØS Market, som åbnede for nylig på Vesterbro i København, og hvis stifter, Frédéric Hamburger, oprindelig er fra Frankrig.

Da jeg for nylig besøgte LØS Market, fortalte Frédéric Hamburger mig, at 90 procent af danskerne gerne vil gøre noget ved emballagen, men ikke har noget valg.

Hos LØS Market kan man købe økologiske tørvarer som pasta og bælgfrugter efter samme koncept som slik i løssalg, hvor maden befinder sig i specielt designede "siloer". Derved undgår man dårlig hygiejne.

Kunderne får mulighed for enten at tage egen medbragt emballage med eller købe glaskrukker eller stofposer i butikken. Og komposterbare poser stilles gratis til rådighed. Derudover er der pantsystem til vin- og olieflasker i butikken.

LØS Market er ikke det første emballagefri supermarked i Danmark. I Aarhus er den emballagefri butik Rå Varer allerede i fuld gang. Og i Berlin har det emballagefri supermarked Original Unverpackt haft åbent i et stykke tid. Ganske som butikken Mølleren Sylvia i Oslo arbejder på at sælge så meget som muligt i løsvægt.

Og ud over at være emballagefri er denne type supermarkeder, der sælger maden i løsvægt, også en håndsrækning til de over 1,5 mio. danske singler og enlige, der ikke kan forbruge de store pakker mad.

Men emballage har også fordele og bidrager til at minimere madspild. En rapport fra Nordisk Ministerråd peger på, at den samlede miljømæssige belastning mindskes, eftersom effekten af mindre madspild er meget større end den miljømæssige belastning fra den øgede mængde af emballage.

Forskere fra bl.a. Aarhus Universitet mener eksempelvis, at bananer får meget længere holdbarhed, hvis man pakker dem ind i tilpasset plastikfolie.

Er revolutionen mod plastik begyndt? Bedømt ud fra den overvældende reaktion på de sociale medier og de mange medieomtaler har emballagefri supermarkeder såsom LØS Market i dén grad fat i danskerne. Allerede inden åbningen havde LØS Markets facebookside således over 12.000 følgere.

Næste spørgsmål er, om konceptet vil fungere i en travl hverdag i et konventionelt supermarked? Måske kan konventionelle supermarkeder blive inspireret til at indføre køb i løsvægt/emballagefri zoner på f.eks. ris, pasta eller gryn. Eller arbejde på at indføre færre plastikposer og flere genbrugelige stofposer.

Emballageindustrien kunne bidrage ved at kigge på fremstilling af mere intelligent emballage, såsom salatpakker med genluk, som forlænger holdbarheden, eller opdelt sampak-emballage, hvor man kun åbner den første del af pakken, mens resten forbliver forseglet.