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Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń A Day in the Life of a Rubbish Bin

Today was no different from any other day. It started with some mouldymouldymouldy bread (the mouldmouldmould just began to show on one side), egg shells, some meat which started to go offgo offgo off, smelly cheese, and a rottenrottenrotten tomato. Around lunch, a piece of stalestalestale cake was added to my contents. After dinner, the leftoversleftoversleftovers landed on the pile as well, even though most of them hadn’t even started to rotrotrot yet. I just don’t get it: people stock up onstock up onstock up on food and then half of it will go to wastego to wastego to waste! It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

But food that can go badgo badgo bad and become inedibleinedibleinedible is not the only type of waste they discarddiscarddiscard. The domestic refusedomestic refusedomestic refuse that they produce is so varied: it can be anything from dust, cans, bottles, paper or bones to sanitary waste — anything generated from day‑to‑day household activities. Luckily, they segregate garbage, so all these things don’t land inside me. Nearby, there are other bins, my friends, which specialise in a given type of rubbish. Still, people wastewaste (verb)waste too much, and overconsumptionoverconsumptionoverconsumption is to blame if you ask me.

The food industryfood industryfood industry has become so complex, and with all the machinery and technology that is used for food processingfood processingfood processing (you know: washing, chopping, pasteurising, freezing, fermenting, packaging, etc.), it can produce more and more, until it’s too much and it ends up in uncontrolled overproductionoverproductionoverproduction. But people want more! They get easily taken in by shop promotions of the BOGOFBOGOF (buy one, get one free)BOGOF type: they buy one product and get one free. Then, it turns out that this second product was totally unnecessary and eventually it lands in a dumpsterdumpsterdumpster.

What worries me is the fact that people rarely think about their rubbish and its impact on the environment. I’m proud that most of my contents consists of biodegradable wastebiodegradable wastebiodegradable waste, which means that it can be decomposed by other living organisms and recycled through compostingcomposting [compost]composting thus enriching the soil to help plants grow. I’m sure, however, that most people don’t know that of those billions of pounds of food that go to waste every year, much is perfectly edibleedibleedible and nutritiousnutritiousnutritious, so it could actually still be eaten. Unfortunately, food safety regulationsfood safety regulationsfood safety regulations state that only 10‑15% of unused perishableperishableperishable food can be re‑purposedre‑purposedre‑purposed or donated once it reaches its best before datebest before datebest before date, which means that most of such food ends up in landfill siteslandfill sites [landfill site]landfill sites.This is dangerous because it gradually breaks down there to form methane, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

One last final thought for today: food loss vs food wastefood loss vs food wastefood loss vs food waste. The formerthe former… the latter…The former refers to any edible food which goes damaged or is not used at the production, storage, processing or distribution stage, whereas the latterthe former… the latter…the latter is food wasted at the consumer or retail level. So, a yoghurt which got spilt during transportation is food loss, while an apple with a dark spot, which landed in a rubbish bin for this reason, is food waste.

That’s it for today. Hope you will pay more attention to what you put inside me! 

1 Źródło: Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń , licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.