According to the ILRES survey on food waste in Luxembourg of September 2022 [1], a large part of the population has the desire to waste less food. The only thing is that people often do not know how to achieve this. Foodsharing Luxembourg and the Foodsharing Akademie are offering free interactive workshops on the weekend of 19 and 20 August at the “Kolla x Mersch” festival in Merscher Park.
With various activities on the topic of food appreciation and food rescue, the food rescuers want to reach a broad audience there. On Saturday, there will be an introduction to the global context of food waste, an information event by Foodsharing Luxembourg and a film screening of “Taste the Waste” followed by a discussion. On Sunday, the day will start with a snipping disco. Everyone can join in and chop vegetables and fruit, which will be prepared on site and offered to everyone. In between, you can watch a juggler and learn to juggle yourself. This will be followed by a workshop on racism issues in the context of food rescue initiatives and another info session by Foodsharing Luxembourg.
You can find the exact programme with names of speakers, times and languages on our project page: https://www.foodsharing-akademie.org/barcamp-festival/
Around one third of all food produced worldwide is not consumed [2]. The resources it contains, such as labour hours, water, transport, etc., are thus equally wasted. This has devastating effects on the environment and the climate. According to a March 2023 study from the journal Nature Food, food loss and waste was responsible for 9.3 gigatonnes of CO2e in 2017 [3]. This corresponds to almost one third of the total global CO2 emissions in that year and almost the CO2 emissions of the USA and the EU together! For this reason, among others, it is also the declared goal of the United Nations to halve food waste and loss worldwide by 2030.
The latest figures from Eurostat on the problem in Luxembourg speak of an average of 147 kg of wasted food per person per year [4]. Two thirds of this occurs at home. Luxembourg is thus clearly above the already high EU average of 127 kg. There are effective solutions along the value chain, many of which could be implemented relatively easily by politicians, businesses and private households.
Foodsharing Luxembourg is a non-governmental organisation (a.s.b.l.) composed of over 700 volunteer members. The vision is that all edible food in Luxembourg is consumed. The volunteers fight food loss and waste by supporting the rapid exchange of food that would otherwise be thrown away. By raising awareness of this issue and its impact on the climate, the environment and society, and by driving systematic change, Foodsharing Luxembourg aims to drastically reduce waste.
The project partner Foodsharing Akademie aims to raise awareness on the topic of food waste through various educational offers and materials and to inform about global contexts and impacts. Learners are made aware of their own possibilities for action and motivated to take their own actions in order to achieve the desired multiplication effect.
On the same weekend, an international barcamp of the foodsharing movement will take place at the SNJ centre in Marienthal, focusing on better cross-border networking and learning from each other. Participants from Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria will be there and later in the day also at the festival in Mersch.
Both events are supported by the Erasmus Plus programme of the European Union and the Œuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte.
For further information, please contact Foodsharing Luxembourg.
[1] ILRES survey, September 2022: https://antigaspi.lu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Ilres_Le-gaspillage-alimentaire_sept-2022.pdf
[2] United Nations on food loss and waste: https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-food-waste-day
[3] Cradle-to-grave emissions from food loss and waste represent half of total greenhouse gas emissions from food systems: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00710-3.epdf
[4] Figures on food loss and waste in the EU from 2020 published by Eurostat, 2022: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20220925-2