Food waste is a “slow motion disaster” which European countries can no longer continue to ignore, European Commissioner Karmenu Vella insisted this morning.

Speaking at an international conference on sustainable food and bio-waste management in Valletta, Mr Vella described reducing food waste as the “quickest and easiest” way of reducing strain on the environment.

According to a European Commission study published last year, 20 per cent of all food produced in the EU is wasted. The total wastage amounts to 88 million tonnes of food per year, at a cost of €143 billion.

“When nearly one in 10 Europeans cannot afford a quality meal every day, it is unacceptable that a fifth of all our food goes to waste,” Mr Vella said. “Wasting food means wasting land, water and emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases for nothing.”

When nearly one in 10 Europeans cannot afford a quality meal every day, it is unacceptable that a fifth of all our food goes to waste

Mr Vella noted that Malta had measures in place to prevent food waste as part of the national waste management programme, and highlighted the EU’s target of halving per capita food waste by 2030.

Meanwhile, environment minister Jose Herrera stressed the government’s focus on moving waste management in Malta up the waste hierarchy, placing greater emphasis on reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery.

He said the organic waste collection scheme, which began as a pilot project last year, was now operating in nine localities, with a total of 1,000 tonnes of waste collected.

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