PHL household food waste falls sharply to nearly 3 million tons a year

International Day of Zero Waste 2024

Philippine households wasted nearly 3 million tons of food a year, down sharply from 2021 totals, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report.

According to the UNEP’s 2024 Food Waste Index Report, Philippine household food waste amounted to 2.95 million tons a year, or 26 kilograms (kg) per capita.

The 2024 report finding is 68.35% lower than the 9.33 million tons/year reported in 2021.

The Food Waste Index measures the amount of food and its inedible parts wasted in retail, food service, and households.

The household sector worldwide accounted for 60% or 631 million tons of wasted food, followed by food service at 28% (or 290 million tons) and retail 12% (or 131 million tons).

“Not only is this a major development issue, but the impacts of such unnecessary waste are causing substantial costs to the climate and nature,” UNEP executive director Inger Angersen said in a statement.

Philippine per-capita household food waste is also lower than the Southeast Asian average of 70 kilograms.

The UNEP also measured the amount of food waste in three provinces within the Philippines. It reported that Cagayan De Oro had a food waste estimate of 26 kg/per capita in a year, Legazpi at 33 kg/per capita, and Ormoc at 18 kg/per capita.

The report also found out that countries with higher temperatures generate more food waste per capita in households, citing the potential for food to spoil, as well as insufficient cold storage facilities.

“The data confirms that food waste is not just a ‘rich country’ problem, with levels of household food waste differing in observed average levels for high-income, upper-middle, and lower-middle- income countries by just 7 kg per capita,” according to the report.

Household food waste in the Philippines may have declined due to improved distribution facilities like farm-to-market roads and storage, said Ateneo De Manila economics professor Leonardo A. Lanzona.

However, the continued surge food prices is attributed to middleman control of the supply chain, especially in distribution.

“This suggests that the farmers do not have much access to these facilities. The middlemen who distribute these farm products are able to utilize these facilities to their advantage,” Mr. Lanzona said in a Facebook Messenger chat.

Food inflation in February accelerated to 4.8% from 3.3% in January, mainly due to rice prices, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The government should ensure that farmers gain equal access to distribution facilities to ease prices and avoid food waste, according to Mr. Lanzona.

Governments are also urged to engage in public-private partnerships to ensure all stakeholders participate in reducing wastage in the food supply chain, according to the report.

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Source: Business World

Anti-people, anti-environment, anti-health and pro-traffic

On Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) announced that its Metro Manila Council had approved a resolution banning e-bikes and e-trikes from the most important roads in the metropolis, effectively making these modes of transportation unviable and unattractive. This is a very bad decision from so many angles.

We have the world's worst traffic in Metro Manila, in large part because we continue to embrace and intensify car-centric approaches that prioritize four-wheeled motor vehicles so that they can move faster on city roads (even though car owners are only a small minority and private cars are the least efficient users of road space).

What experience has taught us over many decades is that focusing our efforts on accommodating more private cars is counterproductive because of the phenomenon of "induced demand." We end up attracting even greater motor vehicle use, leading to more traffic and pollution for everyone.

However, this is exactly what the MMDA is doing with its ban on light electric vehicles — a move that encourages increased car-dependence by limiting the use of more efficient and environment-friendly travel options. No wonder we are the world champions in traffic.

The MMDA uses road safety to justify its decision. It argues that the two-wheelers and three-wheelers pose a danger to the lives of drivers and passengers. What the MMDA fails to mention is the fact that the biggest killers on our roads are four-wheeled motor vehicles. You seldom hear of bicycles or tricycles killing anyone in a road collision; rather, in the road crashes involving bicycles and tricycles, they are likely the victims.

If cars and motorcycles are involved in over 95 percent of road crashes (bicycles, tricycles and e-bikes accounted for only 3.7 percent of Metro Manila road crashes in 2022), shouldn't cars and motorcycles be the target of the MMDA ban?

To have a livable Metro Manila with better mobility, less traffic and less pollution, the MMDA needs to abandon its obsession with serving the needs of private motor vehicles and focus instead on facilitating more efficient, environment-friendly and inclusive travel modes — public transport, walking and cycling, including electric bicycles, tricycles and kick-scooters.

The strategy should be to make these efficient travel modes safe and attractive in comparison with using a private motor vehicle so that car owners leave their cars at home. All over the world, this is the proven and sustainable solution for road congestion. As more people shift to public transport, walking and cycling, private cars can move faster with fewer cars on the road.

Globally, light electric vehicles (two- and three-wheeled bikes and electric kick-scooters) are the fastest-growing segment of the electric vehicle market — delivering many positive outcomes. On the environment front, light electric vehicles are zero-emission, zero-carbon and generally noise-free.

They enable us to have cleaner air and healthier environments. With a much lighter carbon footprint, they also help fight climate change. They are also very energy efficient, many times more than an electric car. For example, it has been estimated that the battery capacity of one medium-sized electric car is sufficient to supply the battery requirements of 125 electric bicycles and 180 electric kick-scooters.

Light electric vehicles are also empowering. Today, electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers are the best option for many who need reliable personal transportation, but are unable to afford a car or motorcycle. They are very popular with working mothers with multiple care duties and have many trips to take in a day.

For persons who are physically challenged, light electric vehicles enable the cyclist to combine human and electrical energy in order to travel longer distances and handle more difficult terrain. This allows the cyclist to remain mobile and active even as one's physical abilities diminish with age or infirmity. For this reason, electric bicycles and tricycles are already helping many senior citizens and persons with disability travel further and longer around their localities.

Light electric vehicles are also highly efficient users of road space. The same road space occupied by a medium-sized car would be able to comfortably accommodate two to three electric kick-scooters or bicycles. This means that the same road space would be able to move many more people if devoted to bicycles and light electric vehicles instead of cars — enabling the road to achieve higher productivity and a higher economic return.

For the above reasons, the MMDA resolution to ban light electric vehicles from major roads sets us backwards. It is also fundamentally unjust and likely unlawful, because the decision implies that wealthier Filipinos who ride cars have a superior right to our roads even though all Filipinos pay taxes to fund road infrastructure.

Today, only 6 percent of households nationwide and only about 11.5 percent of households in Greater Manila are car owners. Why should this small privileged minority enjoy the exclusive use of our busiest roads while other road users are left out?

If the MMDA were truly concerned about the safety of road users and the number of deaths from road crashes, why has it not called for strict compliance with speed limit requirements under the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, which prescribes a maximum speed limit of 20 kilometers per hour (kph) on "crowded streets," defined as "streets within a 500-meter radius of schools, public transportation terminals, markets, government buildings, churches and other places of worship, recreational places, facilities frequented by the youth, parks, shopping malls, movie houses, hotels, restaurants."

A 20-kilometer-per-hour speed limit on all national roads under the MMDA's responsibility will make these roads safe for pedestrians, cyclists and users of light electric vehicles. Shouldn't we be taking this approach instead?

MMDA, you already know that the outcome of your ban on light electric vehicles is that the sales of fossil-fueled cars and motorcycles will increase, followed by more traffic, more carbon, more air and noise pollution, and more road crashes. Is this what you really want?

Source: Manila Times

Asia lags behind pre-pandemic levels of food security

Hunger remains a chronic problem in Asia, with 55 million more people undernourished in 2022 than before the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says in its latest assessment of food security in the region.

Most of those living without enough to eat are in South Asia, and women tend to be less food secure than men, the report says.

The FAO’s study focuses on food supply, consumption and dietary energy needs and is designed to capture a state of chronic energy deprivation that stunts growth and saps productivity and quality of life.

The share of people in the region suffering from such undernourishment fell to 8.4 percent in 2022 from 8.8 percent the year before. But that’s higher than the 7.3 percent of people who were undernourished before the pandemic began, sending some economies into a tailspin and depriving millions of people of their livelihoods.

Natural disasters and disruptions to food supplies, often linked to climate change, have added to those pressures.

The FAO data show the share of people in the region facing moderate food insecurity, uncertain of their ability to obtain food and having to sometimes eat less or poorer food due to a lack of money, or those experiencing hunger that puts their well-being at serious risk, still hovers near 30 percent for the world and above 25 percent for Asia and the Pacific.

The problem is worst for women: more than one in five women in Asia, excluding East Asia, face moderate or severe food insecurity. The rates are slightly lower for men in most regions, but in Southern Asia the gap grows to more than 42 percent for women and more than 37% for men.

Higher food, fuel, fertilizer and livestock feed prices mean that progress has stagnated after the pandemic reversed a longstanding trend beginning in the early 2000s toward alleviation of hunger.

It’s a global problem, made worse by disruptions to supplies of grain, edible oil and fertilizer partly due to the war in Ukraine.

Worldwide, the number of people having precarious access to food rose to nearly 2.4 billion in 2022 from just over 1.6 billion in 2015, the report said.

In Africa, the United Nations says at least three of every four Africans can’t afford a healthy diet because of an “unprecedented food crisis.”

More than half of the 735 million people who are nourished worldwide live in the Asia-Pacific, most of them in South Asia. But North Korea has the largest regional share of people who are undernourished, the report says, at about 45 percent, followed by Afghanistan at 30 percent.

The world average for undernourishment is 9.2 percent, while in the Pacific islands of Oceania, excluding Australia and New Zealand, it was nearly 21 percent, or more than one in five people. In Southern Asia, about 16 percent of people are undernourished, the report says.

Source: Inquirer