Country: Denmark
School/ organization: Aalborg youth School
Delegation leader/teacher: Anne Juel Larsen
Students: Daria Mataonau, Emilie Jennet, Nicole Kryger
Partner organization: Aalborg Youth City Council
Project title: Fixing our food-waste problem
The production of foods is consuming resources and contributing to global carbon emissions. It is not only that producing food in itself is adding to more pollution but also the fact that people are throwing it away makes much of the pollution purposeless. 7 to 8% of global carbon emissions are related to food that we do not even eat.
Most big cities in Denmark are facing this problem. Over the course of one year, all people in Denmark are wasting approximately 247,000 tonnes of food (2017), which is after reducing it from 261,000 tonnes in 2011 and 2012. Wasting food is not only happening in Denmark. There are lots of countries that produce even more waste, and though there are countries that are more aware of how much they are throwing away, food waste is still a global issue.
For a sustainable life in a big city, we decided to make young people more aware of the food waste situation and invited them to contribute in making their own lunches with expired or nearly expired food, to show them that food is okay to be consumed even a few days after their expiration date. We will examine how young people in Aalborg look at the food wasting issue and contribute to a positive mind set regarding food habits.