Can S'pore get to zero food waste? Yes, but go easy on the buffet

Singapore is stepping up efforts to turn food waste trash into treasure. To get there, households will need to play a key role.

- David Fogarty

I always feel a bit guilty tucking into a lavish buffet. The sheer abundance and variety of food, continuously topped up, is wondrous but also worrying. But after the feasting, reality hits: food wastage.

"Fifty per cent of food from buffets is wasted," the head chef of an upscale Singapore hotel told me recently.

And nothing quite says excess like the corporate feasting during the Christmas and Chinese New Year festive periods, when corporate events really turn on the food charm - with buffets, banquets and cocktail receptions.

There, companies woo new clients, thank existing ones or reward staff. Journalists certainly get their share of invites to corporate lunches and parties.

Yet, the nagging feeling of the wasteful consequences of this abundance never goes away.

The Singapore Government has stepped up efforts to improve collection, treatment and disposal of food waste, with a focus on the commercial and industrial players.

It is an urgent issue for Singapore as it tries to reduce the amount of incinerator ash and other waste being dumped at its only landfill at Pulau Semakau.

But households are also a major source. Most of us bag our food leftovers with non-recyclable waste and throw it down a chute or in a bin outside. Toss and forget. Can we change this mindset? Is it possible for residential food waste to be segregated and treated rather than being incinerated in waste-to-energy plants?

THE CLIMATE CONNECTION

Food waste is a US$1 trillion (S$1.36 trillion) problem globally. That is how much food is thrown out every year, causing an estimated 8 to 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Recycling food tackles several environmental ills. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions: CO2 is produced when food is incinerated and the waste is trucked to the incinerators in Singapore.