Water Footprint Of Food Waste

The global blue water footprint of food waste is 250 km 3 that is the amount of water that flows annually through the volga or 3 times lake geneva.

Water footprint of food waste. You ll find lots of ways to shrink your water footprint. Globally the blue water footprint i e. Water footprint of eight common food items. The total water footprint of food waste in uk households is 6 262 million cubic metres per year of which 5 368 million cubic metres per year is attributed to avoidable food waste and a further 894 million cubic metres to possibly avoidable waste.

Put simply producing food requires a lot of water. Ninety eight percent goes to watering the grass forage and feed that cattle consume over their lifetime. Table 1 lists foods common to a us diet and the water footprint of a typical serving for each. The water footprint network wfn has calculated how much water it takes called a water footprint for a large number of food items.

66 given all the resources demanded for food production it is worth our while to make sure that the food we produce is not wasted. Primary production is a water intensive process and agriculture production was reported to make up 92 of the global water footprint hoekstra et al 2012. References edit. In the us we waste about 40 percent of our total food supply every year which also wastes 25 percent of all freshwater consumed annually.

Water footprint of mango food chain waste as a consequence of avoidable food chain waste and fruit weight loss the consumption of 1 kg of fresh mango by an australian household was estimated to require 1 36 kg to be purchased at the retail stage and 2 27 kg to be despatched from an orchard. Their water footprint for food for one day is 4 000 gallons for one week 28 000 gallons and for one year nearly one and a half million gallons. 7 2 water footprint of household food waste in the uk. The fao concludes that nearly 30 percent of all available agricultural land in the world 1 4 billion hectares is used for produced but uneaten food.

If they throw away a third of that that s nearly half a million gallons of water being wasted every year. In addition food waste is responsible for more than 25 percent of all the freshwater consumption in the us each year and is among the leading causes of fresh water pollution. The environmental impact of food loss and waste is centred around water use land use and greenhouse gas emissions chapagain et al 2011. The consumption of surface and groundwater resources of food wastage is about 250 km3 which is equivalent to the annual water dis charge of the volga river or three times the volume of lake geneva.