New Zealand
"Confusion over "best before" labels is contributing to Kiwis needlessly dumping uneaten food worth $750 million a year."
"In New Zealand, land filling is the most common method of solid waste disposal. At a national level, it is estimated that 3.2 million tonnes of waste was sent to municipal landfills in 2006 (Ministry for the Environment, 2007a).
Solid waste disposed to landfill includes common household waste, construction and demolition waste, industrial waste, and hazardous waste.
Analysis of the composition of waste for 16 waste facilities in 2004 estimated that nearly a quarter of the waste disposed to landfill was organic material. The next largest categories were paper (15 percent), timber (14 percent), and rubble and concrete (12 percent) (see figure 8a).
Ideally, we would report on changes in the generation and disposal of waste (see ‘About the indicators’ below). Surveys of landfill operators provide some time series data on waste disposal but estimates have varied significantly because of the quality of the data (Ministry for the Environment, 2007a). Also, it is difficult to interpret the extent to which waste disposed of to municipal landfills is affected by increases in waste disposed of to cleanfills or other disposal sites. In the future, more data should become available as a result of the reporting requirements of the Waste Minimisation Act, 2008."
"If, like Australians, we typically bin 13% of our total food purchases each year and we have no reason to think we are any different from our neighbours more than $2 billion of food is wasted. That's $465 per person per year thrown in the rubbish. And that conservative figure a 2006 estimate suggested 40% of refrigerator food is typically dumped is household waste; it takes no account of the amount lost in the commercial production-distribution-retail cycle, which is certain to be massively larger.
Meanwhile, our foodbanks go begging, our growers and manufacturers are frustrated at the losses, and the resulting waste of food is a "tragic and massive environmental problem", according to British author and campaigner Tristram Stuart."
"In New Zealand, land filling is the most common method of solid waste disposal. At a national level, it is estimated that 3.2 million tonnes of waste was sent to municipal landfills in 2006 (Ministry for the Environment, 2007a).
Solid waste disposed to landfill includes common household waste, construction and demolition waste, industrial waste, and hazardous waste.
Analysis of the composition of waste for 16 waste facilities in 2004 estimated that nearly a quarter of the waste disposed to landfill was organic material. The next largest categories were paper (15 percent), timber (14 percent), and rubble and concrete (12 percent) (see figure 8a).
Ideally, we would report on changes in the generation and disposal of waste (see ‘About the indicators’ below). Surveys of landfill operators provide some time series data on waste disposal but estimates have varied significantly because of the quality of the data (Ministry for the Environment, 2007a). Also, it is difficult to interpret the extent to which waste disposed of to municipal landfills is affected by increases in waste disposed of to cleanfills or other disposal sites. In the future, more data should become available as a result of the reporting requirements of the Waste Minimisation Act, 2008."
"If, like Australians, we typically bin 13% of our total food purchases each year and we have no reason to think we are any different from our neighbours more than $2 billion of food is wasted. That's $465 per person per year thrown in the rubbish. And that conservative figure a 2006 estimate suggested 40% of refrigerator food is typically dumped is household waste; it takes no account of the amount lost in the commercial production-distribution-retail cycle, which is certain to be massively larger.
Meanwhile, our foodbanks go begging, our growers and manufacturers are frustrated at the losses, and the resulting waste of food is a "tragic and massive environmental problem", according to British author and campaigner Tristram Stuart."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/2731460/Welcome-to-the-waste-land
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720052
http://www.celsias.co.nz/article/food-scraps-turn-gold-auckland-processing-company/
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/environment/sustainable_development/sustainable-development/waste.aspx
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720052
http://www.celsias.co.nz/article/food-scraps-turn-gold-auckland-processing-company/
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/environment/sustainable_development/sustainable-development/waste.aspx