Earth Today | ‘Zero waste starts on your plate’
Published:Thursday | March 19, 2026 | 12:06 AM
THIS YEAR’S celebration of International Day of Zero Waste is taking aim at food waste, which generates a reported eight to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change while occupying the equivalent of some 30 per cent of the world’s agricultural land.
According to the 2024 food waste index report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), food waste is, therefore, not only “a market failure that results in the throwing away of more than US$1 trillion worth of food every year”, but is also an environmental failure.
The conversion of natural ecosystems for agriculture has been the leading cause of habitat loss. Just as urgently, food waste is failing people: even as food is being thrown away at scale, up to 783 million people are affected by hunger each year, and 150 million children under the age of five suffer stunted growth and development due to a chronic lack of essential nutrients in their diets,” reveals the report, titled Think, Eat, Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste.
Fast forward two years and food waste is the focus of Zero Waste Day, with messages including “zero waste starts on your plate” and “food waste is undermining food security and compromising progress toward a zero-waste, circular future”.
The world is also being reminded that “reducing food waste is a top climate solution, and a smart choice to protect resources and save money”.
The 2024 report itself champions the move to food waste reduction and proposes public-private partnership as central to getting there.
A public-private partnership (PPP), sometimes known as a ‘voluntary agreement’, is about working together to deliver a shared goal. In tackling food loss and waste, this means a ‘collaboratively agreed, self-determined ‘pact’ or agreement to take action on food waste generated at different stages of the food system’. This involves bringing together stakeholders, either across the whole food supply chain, or within a particular sector or stage of the supply chain,” the report explained.
“By uniting stakeholders around common goals, a PPP aims to overcome challenges of food system fragmentation. The establishment of a PPP is an explicit recognition that we all have a role to play in food loss and waste reduction: from international organisations and national governments through to large and small businesses all the way to consumers. This is an approach that is already operating across the globe and having meaningful impacts on food waste reduction, tackling food insecurity and reducing costs,” it added.
It also proposed five key steps to successfully developing PPP for food waste reduction, notably initiation and set up, including an assessment of the readiness and willingness of stakeholders to collaborate; setting ambitions, goals and targets; strong governance and funding arrangements; establishing actions that are informed by a gap analysis of pains points that give way to waste; together with measurement and evaluation.
MARCH 30 CELEBRATION
Meanwhile, in addressing this year’s Zero Waste Day observance, set for March 30, the UNEP has indicated that attention to food waste holds many benefits – and not only concerning climate change, which is a clear and present danger for countries the world over. Those countries including the small island developing states of the Caribbean, which have been devastated by extreme weather events over the last several years. Last October, Jamaica experienced the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa, a category five system that wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of many people and flogged the economy.
Information from UNEP’s Zero Waste page online is that “food waste alone accounts for up to 14 per cent of global methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas. Cutting food waste not only reduces methane from landfills but also prevents emissions from food production, transport, refrigeration and disposal – making it one of the most cost-effective and achievable climate actions available today”.
“Beyond climate benefits, reducing food waste makes food systems more efficient, resilient and sustainable. Preventing waste saves land, water and energy, reduces financial losses … and creates opportunities for innovation, job creation and circular economy solutions,” the UNEP added.