In life, we take things for granted, without realizing it could go away. Recently I went to a local restaurant in Karachi. On the entrance, there was a sign which said “Take all you can eat, but eat all you take” and below this was mentioned, “Yesterday’s wastage was 6.3 kgs which can feed 21 people”. It made me think that how we haven’t understood the gravity of the situation, where millions of people around the world go to sleep hungry every day. According to a source, around 1.5 billion tons of food is either wasted or lost. Different initiatives have been taken by the federal and the local governments to overcome this issue, from banning late night wedding festivities and other events where food wastage is an established practice. One dish rule at the time of the dinner was also implemented but it never got around our society.
It started bothering me since then, how reluctant we are to bring this change in our society where we waste so much. It is not only wastage of food but also the money one is spending on it. If we think for a second about the tendency of wasting, it has impacted our society and made ourselves negligent towards this issue, we should realize how much this issue needs to be addressed in the public. Where people could be told about the awareness of how food wastage is impacting our society and motivated to change their ways.
Recently I watched a short documentary where a woman in the slums of Manila, goes to different restaurant dump and trash cans, where she tries to find leftover food and recooks them. This recooked food is sold in her slum at cheap prices. People living in those slums are bound to buy the food because they are deprived of food which costs them so heavily.
Dynamism by different restaurants should be promoted and customers should be encouraged not to waste food. It was reported that thousands of people around the world face food poisoning while consuming re-cooked food or leftovers, which could also lead to death.
However, there are some people who have empathy to relate to those people. Different NGOs are working tirelessly to eradicate hunger and feed the poor. A NGO worker in Islamabad started to visit different restaurants in the city where she made an agreement with owners to provide her with food which is left by the customer, every day she gathers food from different places and provides it to the needy people.
A study suggested that tons of products are wasted in the retail business where the damaged and expired or those products which are nearing their date of disposal are wasted. This also accounts for losses for the company, but it’s more about why waste in the first place. So much money could be saved and invested in meaningful causes.
