Do you notice?
# +7.34 million tons of solid wastes were generated in Malaysia (2005) = fill up 42 buildings x PETRONAS Twin Towers!
# By 2020, daily solid waste = the size of 20 football fields measuring up to a metre in height! Yearly = 9.1 million tons (population of +36 million) and 45% is made up of food waste. (Source: Ministry of Housing and Local Government)
So, I just went back from several restaurants to conduct simple surveys regarding food-waste. The result is amazing. People around my area (Hentian Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia) don’t like wasting foods which is a good thing!
However, I could not resist myself to question several costumers and the owners about their eating habit. Here is what I have found:
1) When cooking at home, they tend to cook extra portion making sure they have ‘enough’ left for dinner. But in the evening, they end up having no appetite for same food again. They go out. Ergo, food has been wasted.
Reuse food to reduce waste! Reuse edible leftover foods. E.g : In South East Asia, one of the most famous dishes is fried rice. Making fried rice out of leftover white rice is a good choice! Websites like bbcgoodfood.com, lovefoodhatewaste.com or bigoven.com provide you interesting recipes to try!
2) Health condition. Whenever they get sick, there is no appetite to eat. However, they have got to eat to take their medicine. Again, foods prepared or bought are wasted.
3) Some cases (observed by restaurant’s owner) like dating couple is sometimes having too much conversation that they tend to ignore the food. Romance over Stomach, I guess?
4) At some restaurants which tend to serve bigger portion, food will be wasted too.
Actually, good eating habit has been taught by ancestors. In South East Asia especially, there is philosophy that the amount of leftover food equals to the amount of boon you threw away today. Some tale even says: the rice will come over as nightmare if we don’t finish every bit of it. This might sound silly, but strange enough, it has been proven effective to encourage kids (at least) not to waste food on their plate. Japanese word mottainai which means “what a waste!” and “don’t be wasteful” is also great philosophy embracing 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) with an additional 4th R = “Respect”. Respect to our beloved environment.
Talking about initiatives, I totally agree with restaurant imposing fines to costumers for leftover food. A great example has been successfully implemented at Marmar Restaurant in Damma, Saudi Arabia. The owner even sends collected fines to Somalia supporting the hunger cause over there. Other restaurant is WAFU, a Hongkong based Japanese restaurant which charging 30% extra for leftover food. As result, costumers order less! Way to go!
In Malaysia, another attempt to reduce food waste is by implementing first food waste treatment plant by 2014, under SME Corp.
I believe there should be specific local government policy about food waste. We may start small, like current “Saturday No plastic Bag” campaign. Government may issue certain endorsement for restaurants to cooperate implementing this policy. Call it “Weekends No Leftover” campaign, may be?
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