In an Irish consumer food waste survey we carried out, 87% of those surveyed said that they consider the environmental impact when throwing food away.Irish Consumer Food Waste Survey: Solutions and Behaviours

In an Irish consumer food waste survey we carried out, 87% of those surveyed said that they consider the environmental impact when throwing food away. Corkonians were the most conscious, with 91% saying they think of the environmental impact of their food, compared to 80% of Limerick residents at the lower end.

Only 9.8% of respondents said that they never think about the environmental impact when they throw food away.

With the government’s commitment to halving food waste in Ireland by 2030, these results are promising and speak to how eco-conscious the Irish consumer has become.

Irish consumer food waste survey: solutions

According to Project Drawdown, fighting food waste is the number one solution to combating climate change. (1)

27% of those surveyed stated that they were aware of this but the majority did not know this.

Only 28% of Irish adults think that waste from the food industry is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, with 40% believing that it is the aviation industry. In truth, food waste causes 4% more greenhouse gas emissions than the aviation industry. (2)

The takeaway from this: further awareness may be needed to allow us to reach our goal of halving food waste in Ireland.

Irish consumer food waste survey: behaviours

The survey revealed that 39.2% of people use a food bin at home. Considering it takes a head of lettuce 25 years to decompose in landfill, ensuring that food waste in Ireland is composted means that consumers are lessening the environmental effect of their surplus. (3)

However, reducing the amount of food not being eaten is our goal, with reference to the fact that fighting food waste is the number one solution to tackling climate change. When food is wasted, the resources used to produce it including water, energy, labour and land are squandered.

Nearly all Irish adults (99%) are doing something to reduce their food waste. Approximately half (49%) say that they pre-plan their meals every week, while 12.8% of respondents said that they use all the edible parts of the food they eat - for example, making crisps from potato peels.

Again, only a small number of those surveyed (1.2%) say that they do not currently do anything to reduce their food waste.

FOOD WASTE IN IRELAND: STATISTICS 

In research carried out by the EPA, they discovered that Ireland generates more than one million tonnes of food waste each year with a CO2 equivalent of 3.6 million tonnes. The EPA confirms that the best option is to prevent food waste. (4)

Food waste in Ireland can be categorised into what is wasted by households and what is wasted in the commercial sector. Household food waste is estimated to be 250,000 tonnes per annum, whereas commercial food waste is estimated to be 303,000 per annum. (5)

This means that in the mission to fight food waste in Ireland, we are facing a two-pronged challenge: spreading further awareness on the issue of food waste in Ireland to consumers and supporting businesses in food waste prevention.

If you’re a food business looking to reduce your surplus food, we’d love to answer any of your questions about Too Good to Go, the world’s number one surplus food marketplace.

SOURCES

Survey results taken from a survey of 504 nationally representative ROI adults conducted by Markettiers on behalf of Too Good To Go between 07.04.2022-13.04.2022.

1. The Drawdown Review: Climate Solutions for a New Decade, 2020 <https://drawdown.org/drawdown-review>
   
2. Climate change and flying: what share of global CO2 emissions come from aviation?, Our World in Data, October 2020 <https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation>
3. Anthony Bourdain’s New Film Explores Problem of Food Waste, Treehugger, October 2018 https://www.treehugger.com/anthony-bourdains-new-film-explores-problem-food-waste-4855309
4. Circular Economy: Food Waste, EPA, <https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/circular-economy/food-waste/>
5. The Nature and Extent of Food Waste in Ireland, EPA, March 2021 <https://www.epa.ie/publications/circular-economy/resources/nature-and-extent-of-food-waste-in-ireland.php>

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