In the world, three times more food is wasted than is needed to feed all the hungry, and if wasted food were viewed as a country, it would be in third place in terms of emissions of harmful gases with the greenhouse effect, just behind China and the USA , it is stated, among other things, in the research of the Belgrade Center for the Improvement of the Environment. Also, it is said that the total damage caused by this goes beyond the limits of reasonable behavior and represents a call for an immediate reaction of all participants in the chain - from farms to producers, to retail chains, caterers and consumers.
Also, the analysis of research from 2022 on the direct measurement and morphological composition of food waste from commercial facilities showed that the commercial sector in Belgrade annually generates more than 40 thousand tons of edible and inedible parts of food.
"If we leave aside how food is produced, treated from the fields, factories, in transport, to the processing industry and focus on the final product, that is, wasted food, the biggest impact on pollution is that it is thrown into an unsanitary landfill. And in Serbia they are mostly like that", says Bojan Batinić, associate professor of the Faculty of Technical Sciences at the Department of Environmental Engineering. He explains that gases, ie methane, due to their biodegradability, will be created and released into the atmosphere where they will have a negative impact on the greenhouse effect. "And methane is twenty times more harmful to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, which is a parameter," he adds.
FOOD DONATION MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
How much food is wasted in restaurants?
As for restaurants that operate under the so-called a la carte in principle, food waste is reduced to a minimum. However, these residues are not recycled, but thrown away.
Dejan Stanković, head chef of "Osteria Mozzarella", explains to "Vreme" that the food prepared in a la carte to a restaurant, such as the restaurant where he works, prepared according to a norm that satisfies one portion, that item and the offer in the restaurant. "The excess appears when the guest, for example, does not eat the entire portion and that food cannot end up anywhere else but in the bin. In such restaurants, the food that was in front of the consumer can no longer be used because it is contaminated, but it could be recycled in a certain way."
How could this be implemented?
Marko Radosavljević, chef of the hotel "Mona Plaza" - a hotel restaurant that also works according to the buffet system - says: "As a hotel, we are a production sector that deals with the processing of raw materials of organic origin. According to the law of the Republic of Serbia, food can stand at room temperature for two hours, but we, as chefs from that business, know that it can stand for four hours and it will not spoil, and after that we cannot guarantee that it will be in order". He explains, for example, that the cakes prepared in their restaurant do not have stabilizers, that they are homemade, and that they cannot guarantee that those cakes will be good even the next day, after being on the buffet table. In other words, they must be thrown away. "I think it's a big problem," Radosavljević points out. "The state should really deal with it because all that food, especially in Belgrade where there are a huge number of hotels, could be separated and used in feeding animals, say in zoos, asylums, farms..."
Therefore, it is not an issue that can be solved only at the individual level, but a systemic response is needed. Namely, the interlocutors of "Vremen" state that donating food to asylums, zoos and other institutions where food is needed is almost impossible because the paperwork and administration is too demanding and takes a lot of time. That is why it is necessary for the state to "get involved", to motivate employers, to regulate what and how must be recycled or donated, as well as to facilitate the whole procedure.
BRIGHT EXAMPLES
Nevertheless, domestic restaurant chains have different initiatives, and one of them is that, for example, all the previously mentioned restaurants, and they are not the only ones, recycle the oil from the fryer, which is processed into biofuel.
"The key is in well-organized restaurants because there is no overproduction of food." In my company, there are two initiatives: the first is to use coffee grounds, i.e. used coffee, for biological waste that would be recycled, and the second is to use the waste produced in the production plant in further distribution, i.e. the production of animal feed. ” says chef Đorđe Radulović.
Within the Mona hotel chain, they also have an initiative called "Green key" where they deal with environmental issues, such as sorting glass, cardboard, waste oil, so that the hotel's accompanying material is biodegradable...
"The treatment of food waste is diverse. One is the matrix of the European Union where the first step in a series of preventions is - what are the measures we can establish to reduce food waste. The second, systematic and more serious step is to separate that food at the source, paper, cardboard, glass, organic waste. They have different values and different paths as they go to recycling, and separated food waste has two essential treatments", says Professor Batinić. "The first is composting, where you can get compost that is similar to natural fertilizer and it is with the presence of oxygen. Another way is to place the waste in oxygen-free conditions and produce methane as in a landfill, but under controlled conditions. The point is that this methane, no matter how harmful it is to the environment, is a good energy source that can be used for the production of electricity and heat."
VICE CIRCLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
In countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy and Scandinavian countries, there is a thin system of recycling and environmental protection, as well as laws and matrices according to which every restaurant must function the same.
"Food is wasted and thrown away mostly where societies are undisciplined. An important element in solving that problem would be the education of young people, children and employees", explains Dejan Stanković. "As my friend from Slovenia says: 'What you throw away, we make money on it'; it is a system that should and must be worked out. Also, I think that the profession and chefs are not doing enough in this regard."
Professor Batinić believes that there is still a way for restaurants to self-initiatively get involved in the action of recycling food that is waste by creating mini plants, i.e. mini composters - closed containers where food waste is disposed of and composted by itself. By producing methane, as the professor states, that energy can be used for hot water, but again we come back to the fact that people are not motivated because the fees are very small.
Finally, the question arises - what about social awareness in a country where about 123.000 children live below the absolute poverty line, which means that they are hungry, and food is thrown away, for example, at weddings. Namely, chef Dejan Stanković says that in Serbia, mass gatherings are the most critical, and especially wedding celebrations, where the prestige is the way the wedding is prepared and how much food there is. He adds that an illustrative description of this is the sentence of almost every host - "don't let anything be missing on my table, there must always be plenty of everything". In addition, as Stanković points out, that host does not want to take food from the wedding even though he will continue the festivities at home. Thus, according to his words, approximately nine and a half tons of food is thrown away in Belgrade in one weekend. "It's megalomania and lack of awareness among people who don't think that maybe the very food they throw away could prolong someone's life."
All in all, restaurants, and systems a la carte and buffet, have the same problem - with paperwork and the state that does not change the system of catering establishments. The existing laws and recommendations of the European Union are minimally respected. For now, it only depends on the restaurant how it will affect where the food that is waste will end up, and those initiatives are not prosperous for the employer, so it is highly likely that they will continue in the existing manner - throwing mixed waste into containers with further "disposal". to unsanitary landfills where further environmental pollution is promoted. And the hungry will still be hungry.
