Abstract: Journal of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Abstract:
In today's world, one third of global food production goes to waste, despite our failure to talk much about it in the broad context of sustainability. While we waste a cool $ trillion and 1.3 billion tons of food annually, enough to feed more than twice as many people as are hungry today (800 million), we seem too seldom to put this problem in the context of climate change, water availability, or land use, offer practical solutions or solutions that normal citizens can take on. This brief article attempts to outline the many sustainability challenges posed by food waste, from greenhouse gas (GHG) and PM2.5 emissions to water and land wastage. It also explores the wide range of “solutions” to the food waste problem, behavioral and engineered, explains their limits and offers the bio charring of food waste as a feasible, cost-effective, commoner-inclusive way of approaching the many aspects of the food waste problem, environmental, social and practical.