Five Fixes for Food Waste
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Every day, the world discards over a billion meals' worth of food, despite hundreds of millions going hungry. A fifth of all food reaching stores, restaurants and kitchens is wasted, accounting for 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – nearly five times the emissions from flying.
There are five potential solutions to reduce food waste. Scientific advancements are turning industrial food waste into valuable products. Chemists have discovered a cost-effective method to recycle mountains of industrial ice cream waste. The same proteins that maintain a frozen treat's smooth texture pose a challenge in recovering its fat.
Recycling food waste offers significant climate benefits, but it also presents an environmental downside. A study examining American composting and biogas systems reveals that the climate gains are overshadowed by a microplastics problem. The issue lies in the materials used to wrap food.
Written by urgent.news from Anthropocene Magazine's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
