Hero video
Food waste is the world's dumbest problem
 
Video by Vox

The Cost of Consumer Food Wastage

Beth Watts —

Investigate the environmental and financial impact of food wastage in our own homes and communities and what we can do to reduce the amount we waste.

Your Challenge:

To investigate how much food we waste and what we can do to reduce the wastage.

Follow this Process:

  1. Watch this video Food waste is the world's dumbest problem

  2. Brainstorm how you might investigate how much food is wasted in your own school or home in a week.

  3. Research how much food is wasted by people in their own homes and businesses such as restaurants, catering companies etc annually. What is the impact of this on both the environment and financially? How much food is wasted in your own home or school in one week? 

  4. Discuss your findings: How do you think your own food wastage compares to the average? Where you think the biggest wastage is and how you think this could be reduced? What could people or businesses do with their excess food rather than throwing it away?

  5. Summarize your findings in a report (presentation, video) to present back to the class and/or school and via this website.

  6. Take Action by deciding how you can use your new-found knowledge to raise awareness in others about how much food goes to waste.

  7. Capture and Share these outcomes using photo and/or video and post on this site to inspire others.

Educator Notes

To make this more challenging:

  • Incorporate statistics on food wastage for students - try this site to start you off: ourworldindata.org > Food
  • Get students to do some research into how much food is wasted at local retailers such as supermarkets, bakeries, etc.
  • Get students to research where else in the food chain (from growers/farmers all the way to the retailers) food gets wasted.

To make this more accessible:

  • Get students to do some research to figure out how much food is wasted over a week at school from their lunches.
  • Combine this information across the class and do some estimation about how much food the entire school wastes just on food brought to school. 

Useful links