Every year, people waste a total of about 1.3 billion tonnes of food. That is about one third of all the food produced in the world in one year. If we reduced food waste by 25%, there would be enough food for everyone on the planet.
Wasting food is bad for lots of reasons. First of all, if you waste food, you also waste money. The charity WRAP says that British families could save about ₤700 per year if they wasted less food. When people throw away food, this affects the environment. There is more rubbish to collect. Energy and other resources are wasted too. If one third of all the food in the world is wasted, the effect on the environment is very big - water and energy are wasted and there are higher greenhouse gas emissions.
In developing countries, the transport and storage of food is often difficult. This means that a lot of food goes bad before people can buy it. In rich countries this is not a problem. However, people in rich countries waste about 40% of the food that they buy. People in rich countries waste about 222m tonnes a year. That is almost as much as all the food produced...