What a waste: tackling food waste from production to post consumption

Description

Food waste is an entrenched practice with harmful ecological, economic and social consequences. Across the entire food life-cycle – from production and distribution to retail, preparation, and post-consumption – unsustainable levels of food is discarded every year. Food waste generates greenhouse gases, depletes dwindling resources, exacerbates global hunger, accelerates biodiversity loss and land degradation, and costs an estimated $1 trillion annually.

Although efforts to mitigate the problem of food waste have advanced, across different scales and sectors, the practice remains a persistent feature of ‘throwaway societies’. This seminar explores the innovations, challenges and opportunities associated with driving down food waste in Bristol, focusing on the technical, economic, political, and cultural drivers behind both the problem and its solutions.

Programme

18:00-18:15 – Understanding food waste as a problem (Beth Benker, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, UWE Bristol)

18:15-18:30 – Nature in danger: how livestock farming is killing our planet (Viva!)

18:30-18:45 – Closed loop food systems (Kate Macdonald, Frome Valley Growing Project)

18:45-19:15 – Q and A, chat and refreshments

19:15-19:30 – Rescue it, share it: alternative solutions to food waste (Susie Day, Head of Communications, FareShare South West)

19:30-19:45 – Do fridges make us waste food? (Emma Atkins, University of Bristol)

19:45-20:00 – Food waste in the home: insights from Bristol’s bins (Sarah Burns, Bristol Waste Company)

20:00-20:30 – Q and A, mingle and refreshments