The Hunger of the Waste

Food waste quantily of a student, when he was in the pack the board.

The school comunity needs a fast learning about food and a strong and shocking awareness about food waste. Every day past, the university students are responsable by an increase food surplus that goes to waste.

The food waste has being growing in Portugal, year after year, where in media, 132 kilos are wasted anualy by every person.

In the past 28 of March of 2017, have been studied the amount meals served and the waste generated by them at the canteen of ESTeSC – Coimbra Health School, during the lunch period (12h until 14h).

At the end of that period, after serving the meals, was quantified the weight of the food waste of leftover on the dishes, where was found 37 kilos that was sent to garbage, during the short period of 2 hours.

Daily exists an alarming number of meals being made (about 300 meals) by the ESTeSC canteen, where the leftovers which are not served, by rule, are used in next day meal, except food with potencial microbiológic contamination.

The principal cause for the amount of food waste daily at the canteen is the irracional attitude by the students, because they have the habit of asking for more food when being served.

In encouter of the studies previously conducted in the same canteen, unlike the expectable, the amount of leftovers does not have been decreasing, but in the oposite way.

In May of 2015, in previous data colected by students of Enviorment Health of ESTeSC, have been acounted 23 kilos, that being 14 kilos less that is wasted presently. However, they dont have data about the number of meals served.

Dish to dish adds up to 37 kilos of food wasted by consumers in the ESTeSC canteen in one day.

Where is the fault? Where is the awareness in school community? There are many questions when we cross data. In reality, there is many campains of awareness, poster awareness, many meal surveys, and many other ideas spread in visible places around the canteen space.

The time has come for even the students to demonstrate less and less

Interest in world problems such as hunger, where according to the ONU, “about 800 million people are hungry.”

According to the FAO, “industrialized countries waste 1.3 billion tons of food a year, , enough to feed about 925 million hungry people in the world”. It is necessary change behavior, take action, change habits, reduce waste, and to do so the sooner you start changing habits, the better your results will be.

The food waste begins in us, but it can also end in us, provided that each person begins to food and eat according to the hunger of each one and not the greed that has at meal time.