IMPACT OF FOOD WASTE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract

Food  waste represents an issue that needs to be solved in order to achieve sustainable development and reduce its environmental impacts. Intensive utilization of resources sustained many decades of growth in wealth and wellbeing in Europe. Today, efforts are being made to get efficient use and development of resources, thus complying with the EU vision for 2050: all resources will be sustainably managed, waste will be managed as a resource and climate change milestones will be reached etc. In this work we focus on the actions of sustainable food production and consumption necessary to diminish the impacts of food waste on the environment. It is considered that food wastage arises from an inefficient use of ecosystem services but also can be considered as an important contributor to climate change. The greenhouse gas (GHG) calculations in the early stages of decision making process, for different waste management strategies, could provide us the quantification and comparison of GHG emissions for different categories of food waste and allow the understanding of the efficiency of proper waste management on GHG emissions. In this paper we have applied a specific tool to calculate GHG emissions generated by food  waste considering three waste management scenarios developed for Iasi city, Romania, based on the targets established by legislation.