© Zero waste cooking event on 23rd of NovemberThe Municipality of Halandri's Food Loss and Waste Prevention Unit combines food-waste monitoring, awareness raising, and citizen-science education, with the optimisation of bio-waste using chemical-engineering processes.
HALVING FOOD WASTE BY 2030
The problem to be addressed is food-waste prevention. Food waste is a great challenge, with environmental and social-economic impacts. Food loss and waste in Greece is estimated to be 191 kilograms per capita per year, with 45.5% of food waste occurring in households [EUROSTAT]. UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 sets as a target to halve food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030. Therefore, the Municipality of Halandri has decided to combat food waste.
MEASURE – SEPARATE – EDUCATE
To this end, the Municipality of Halandri founded the Food Loss and Waste Prevention Unit to coordinate efforts. The primary activity is to measure baseline of food waste and identify the hotspots where this occurs. The second objective is to optimise the separate collection of kitchen bio-waste in the Municipality. The municipality also aspires to educate as many school pupils as possible on the importance of saving food, especially surplus, and create momentum in local society to prevent waste.
PREVENTING AND REDUCING FOOD WASTE
Extensive food waste monitoring and dissemination activities have been carried out in 2022-2023, such as monitoring public nurseries and household food waste, workshops, zero-waste cooking event, and several stakeholder meetings. The intended outcomes are to create awareness and a living lab of socially-responsible citizens who prevent and reduce food waste. The next step is to explore the best ways to benefit from food waste. This supports environmental protection, sustainability, and the circular economy.
