When France recently passed legislation that makes it illegal for stores to purposely waste discarded food, people worldwide took to the internet to voice their unconditional approval and questioned the obvious— will this genius plan become global?
Arash Derambarsh, the local councillor who initiated the legislation in his own Paris suburb, is currently preparing to convince other countries to adopt Frances new and widely popular method of reducing food waste.
Statistically, the world wastes 1/3 of its total food supply. Undeniably this incredible calculation is neither acceptable or justifiable. Derambarsh himself had recognised this problem and decided to take a stand in the fight against food waste. 
He believes that it is “scandalous and absurd”, that stores either waste or deliberately destroy their food, while millions of homeless, poor and unemployed people go hungry.
Before Derambarsh took his idea to French MPs, he first initiated a petition to strengthen his cause. In just four months his petition gained more than 200,000 signatures and celebrity support. After the amendment was approved as part of a wider law, called the Loi Macron, which covers economic activity and equality in France. It is scheduled to be passed by the national assembly on April 2, and enter the statute books shortly after.
Once actioned the new law will ban the country’s supermarkets from discarding any food approaching its best-before dates, force them to donate unwanted food to charities or farmers and prohibit them from destroying or poisoning any food with bleach, preventing the products from being salvaged and put to better use.
“Food is the basis of life, it is an elementary factor in our existence,” Derambarsh told The Guardian, which is why he is eager to attempt convincing more counties to adopt his idea.
Nation and international food waste is an issue very important and personal to Derambarsh.
“I have been insulted and attacked and accused of being naive and idealistic, but I became a local councillor because I wanted to help people. Perhaps it is naive to be concerned about other human beings, but I know what it is like to be hungry. When I was a law student living on about €400 a month after I’d paid my rent, I used to have one proper meal a day around 5pm. I’d eat pasta, or potatoes, but it’s hard to study or work if you are hungry and always thinking about where the next meal will come from.”
It is estimated that roughly 805 million people worldwide — about 1 in 9 people — do not have enough food. Contrary to popular belief not all these hungry individuals are found in poverty stricken countries. The homeless, unemployed and those earning a low wage in developed nations, survive on very little food.
Derambarsh is planning to table the issue — via the campaign group ONE, founded by U2 singer Bono — in September when the United Nations discuss its Millenium development goals to end poverty. He also plans to table the issue at the G20 economic summit in Turkey in November and at the COP21 environment conference in Paris in December.
Amongst the buzz around Derambarsh’s inspiring goals, it has been reported that 7.1 million tons of food is estimated to be thrown away annually in France — 67% by consumers, 15% by restaurants, and 11% by shops. A shocking 89 million tones of food is wasted across the EU and 1.3 billion tones is estimated to be wasted worldwide.
With these statistics in mind, you can help initiate change today. Reduce your household waste by consuming more responsibly, at the supermarket only purchase food you are certain you will consume before it spoils. Make use of leftovers or even donate excess food to your local food bank or homeless shelter. Together we can start reducing the excessive amount of food that is wasted every year.
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“Initiated” not ‘iniciated’ – it drops your credibility with such errors. For all it is worth – it helps to keep a dictionary/translator near. Thank you for the time and energy put into the news you post, but spelling is important.
Gary Lance, one word error does not discredit the facts or impact exposed in this article. Bet you have misspelled a word or two in your lifetime.
Fuck off you nazi cunt.
holy shit gary… i had to log in just to comment on your comment… you are such a dick, do you honestly have nothing better to do with your life then to find articles just to complain about the grammar… you pathetic piece of shit… re read the article will you… it is talking about something great… it does not need your 2 cents…
Gray Lance – there are more than one version of English spoken in the world. As English continues to grow, give the second language speakers a break. How many do you read?
Gary is 100% right! Is even worse that it’s a headline! Spelling mistakes are becoming increasingly more frequent everywhere, even in the printed press!
Sadly true. For a native speaker a dictionary is always useful.For a non-native speaker it’s essential. Whilst our colloquial speech is often not grammatically correct or even sometimes not pronounced in any immediately recognisable fashion, in order to be taken seriously, the written word must be all of those things, at least.
Mistakes are part of humanity, such as stupidity, what do you think Gray Lance ?
Gray Lance. Your comment was the most useless and non-interesting comment I have wasted my time on this entire month. Yes, spelling and grammar is important, most people know that… even those who are less than good at writing. Your spelling bully attitude is old and lame. Try to grow up and learn other languages, and then you will quickly discover how incredibly bad you are at spelling when you get away from your native English.
English is not native to me, and I can speak/read/write a total of 11 languages, some better than others… English is probably the 3rd best managed language in my vocabulary. If you want to bully people based on a SINGLE spelling issue (probably a native Spanish speaker who wrote the article), you really need to grow up and behave in public/online as if you are more than a 13 year old brat with mental issues.
Thank you… and hopefully you will take this as a friendly hint at becoming more tolerant and understanding.
Trausti. Thanks for taking the time to educate others. Without people like you the world would obviously be much worse. Those that needlessly rebuke others are ignorant themselves and display their own lack of understanding. I hope others will learn from your response in contrast to those who only sought to reprimand the author. This article is easily understood and I am glad to hear the great news!
I’ll also add that a bit of what I said was sarcastic and where I said “author” I meant “authors” of the article and other comments.
Make a list before you go to the grocery store, know how much money is in your account before you’re in the checkout line, don’t put into your cart unless you’re sure you want it and can pay for it. Once it’s out of the freezer it goes into the garbage if you decide you don’t want it. Food safety laws prohibit stores from saving and donating perishable food in most cases. A lot of food waste comes from consumers who are just too lazy to put the food back when they decide they don’t want it. I think stores should start charging people for the lost inventory although that probably wouldn’t work in the real world.
Carmen, it is not always that simple. I do all of those things, but math is not exactly my strong suit, so sometimes I end up having to put a few items back. But I’m glad you think you have the right to tell other pple how to do their grocery shopping. Feel free to tell pple how to clean their house next, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the pointers!
Nice
vive coluche et les resto du coeur, ils leurs a fallu 30 ans pour enfin la faire cette lois.Encore une fois l’action du peuple s’était déja faite avant la réaction du gouvernement.merci a vous pour cette bonne nouvelle.
We need to reduce of waste
desde criança sempre me questiono: eu atravessava minha cidade a pé, e comendo frutas de arvores de calçada, hoje só arvores não frutiferas ( somente flores), porque? tão facil plantar arvores de frutas, porque não é + plantado arvores de frutas? , porque as pessoas estam preguiçosas pra educar seus filhos, não dizem pra seus filhos que eles tem de conservar estas arvores, pra terem frutas de calçada, futas em arvores de calçada também embelezam calçadas, e alimentam no momento certo!