Hello Reader,
For this week's assignment, we were asked to: "Write about a sustainable consumption‐related news story from this week’s media. Are there any unspoken assumptions in the piece, about the causes of unsustainable consumption? What about their assumptions about the ways to tackle it?"
I have decided to use the following article:
Study Analyzes Food Waste in Britain
By Pete Browne
Published in the New York Times
10th November 2009
As usual, I would put a direct link but the New York Times would probably change it soon anyway, so you will have to search for it yourself.
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As the title indicates, the article touches on the amount of food that is wasted in the UK. According to the article the amount of food wasted each year is approximately 6.6 million tons, or $20 billion worth of food and beverage, which represents the equivalent of 15 million tons of CO2 emissions from production, storage, and disposal. The article attributes this waste to over-consumption (in the purchasing sense), which leads to more food being prepared than can be eaten and allowing the food to spoil.
The article is fairly straightforward about the obvious suspected causes of unsustainable consumption. It also mentions fairly mainstream approaches to rectifying the issue, such as increasing the landfill tax as a means to discourage food (and presumably other) waste. However, it does not appear to mention or address any of potential root causes.
Just through common observations, I have my suspicions about potential causes. One potential cause is that it is now socially acceptable (and expected) that families will go grocery shopping no more than once a week, which means that foods are pre-portioned and packaged in bulk. This can result in unwanted leftovers that sit in the back of the fridge if they do not go directly into the trash. This social norm (along with other lifestyle choices that accompany it) has other side effects that likely accompany it that do not directly relate to food waste but are still problematic for consumers, such as a decrease in the amount of fresh food and an increase in the number of chemical preservatives in consumers' diets.
Furthermore, though I do not currently have a chance to look for specific research on it, I suspect that the current food system (pulling food out of boxes (and then out of bags and then out of plastic wrappers and then ...well, you get the idea), sticking it in a magic box to cook for 2-3 minutes on high, and then disposing of the extras into a bin that gets emptied early in the morning once a week) creates a physical and mental disconnect between consumers and the amount of effort and energy that goes into growing, preparing, and disposing of food. This subliminal psychological barrier can certainly be playing right into a pattern of unsustainable consumption that will be difficult to break with an increase in landfill taxes. If anyone can point to specific research or studies on this subject, I would appreciate it.
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I could go on, but I have had my fill for this post, and I wouldn't want to over do it! I promise I'll compost the leftovers. Catch up with me again next week on another exciting episode of sustainable consumption to find out if our heroes will be able to overcome the plot to make society unsustainable!
Yours in sustainability,
Sean Diamond
Hi Sean, this is a great little case study analysis! Yes, it's interesting that often when it comes to food waste, as with so much 'overconsumption', it's individual consumers who are assumed to be doing it wrong - buying too much, eating too much, throwing away too much, etc. It's as though a bit more self-discipline (or economic/environmental rationality) is all that's needed to get to grips with the situation.
ReplyDeleteBut you're absolutely right - there are deep-rooted sociological factors at work here too - like the culture of food-disconnecting you mention, and the way food is sold too. So this starts to point the finger at supermarkets, at food manufacturers, at the way we live our lives... at the many contributing factors which make up the food systems of provision that we know today. These are much bigger targets than individual consumers but much more complex and difficult ones to tackle as well, and perhaps these targets would put up more of a fight?!