Effects of wastage of food have tremendous repercussions. Moreover, the United Nations estimates that 1 in 9 people in the world barely has access to even 1 square meal a day. This means more people die of hunger than any other disease. Recent estimates have put this figure close to 9 million people.
Wasting food is morally wrong when there are countless other people who are on the brink of death due to hunger. The Global Hunger Index rates the Central African Republic at 53.6 in 2019, this means the hunger rates are extremely alarming with serious levels of malnutrition.
Nevertheless, the effects of wastage of food drastically impact society as well as the environment. Food has to be processed before consumption. This means energy and resources are expended in harvesting, transporting, storing and cooking food. When food is wasted, all these efforts and energy goes to waste. Moreover, wasted food that ends up in landfills often produces large quantities of methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, hence, it directly contributes to global warming.
Most food products require large volumes of water, hence wasted food translates to large volumes of wasted freshwater. Hence, throwing a glass of milk down the drain is equivalent to wasting 1,000 litres of water. Similarly, throwing away 1 kg of meat is equivalent to throwing away between 5,000 to 20,000 litres of water.
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