The costs of household food waste in South Africa

Nahman, Anton; Lange, Willem de; Oelofse, Suzanna Hh; Godfrey, Linda K

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2012.04.012

Cited by 103 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Here, it is important to reflect on the results of our statistical models that GDP is positively related to food waste. In middle-income countries, such as South Africa, although food waste from agricultural production, post-harvest handling and storage, and processing and distribution sill make up the bulk of losses along the supply chain, increasingly consumer food waste is being noted as a major problem [44][45][46]. Households often tend to prepare/buy too much food, especially staples such as porridge and rice, which ends up thrown away, along with expired or spoiling bread.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Haque

Legwegoh

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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Approximately one third of the world's food is lost, and reducing this represents an important strategy for promoting more sustainable food systems and addressing global food insecurity. This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the socio-economic factors that are significant in causing food loss in developing countries. These countries were chosen because the majority of food waste in poorer nations happens on or around the farm and is due to inefficient storage and processing facilities (by contrast, the majority of food waste in the global north is caused by consumers or retailers and, hence, is a very different problem). To explore this topic, we conducted a multivariate panel data analysis where the volume of food loss in 93 countries over 20 years was used as the dependent variable and a range of socio-economic factors were used as independent variables. Results show that, for the countries in the global south, variables related to wealth, agricultural machinery, transportation, and telecommunications were significant in explaining the amount of lost food. We used these results to model the effectiveness of different hypothetical policies designed to reduce food loss and estimate that up to 49% of food loss could be averted by improving each countries' performance on these variables. While these results seem to offer huge opportunities to improve the sustainability of global agricultural systems and address global food security, this paper concludes on a note of caution: as countries grow wealthy enough to address the food lost by challenges associated with on-farm issues, these same countries may start to experience more food waste at the consumer/retailer end of the food chain. Therefore, any attempt to reduce on-farm food loss in lower income countries must be met with policies to reduce the emerging problems of food waste amongst consumers and retailers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Haque

Legwegoh

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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“…10 As such, households in wealthier countries tend to generate more food waste than those in developing countries; while in all cases there are significant economic costs associated with food waste. The average annual cost of household food waste in South Africa is ZAR21.7 billion (EUR1.5 billion at an exchange rate of ZAR14.40/EUR1.00) 11 . Annual costs of food waste in Europe are reported as ZAR7 200 million (EUR500 million) in Finland 12 , ZAR388.8 billion (EUR27 billion) in Norway 13 , ZAR30.96 billion (EUR2.15 billion) in Denmark 14 and ZAR126.7 billion in the UK (GBP10.2 billion at an exchange rate of ZAR12.42/GBP1.00) 15 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…26 In an earlier study, following a different methodology (i.e. using estimates from waste characterisation studies conducted in South Africa across various municipalities rather than Gustavsson et al's averages for subSaharan Africa), Nahman et al 11 estimated household food wastage in South Africa at 1.4 million tonnes per annum, or 28 kg per capita per annum. This is nearly three times the 9.68 kg per capita per annum estimated by Nahman and De Lange 25 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Household food waste disposal in South Africa: A case study of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni

Oelofse¹,

Muswema²,

Ramukhwatho³

2018

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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Food waste is becoming an important issue in light of population growth and global food security concerns. However, data on food wastage are limited, especially for developing countries. Global estimates suggest that households in developed countries waste more food than those in developing countries, but these estimates are based on assumptions that have not been tested. We therefore set out to present primary data relating to household food waste disposal for South Africa within the sub-Saharan African context. As the Gauteng Province contributes about 45% of the total municipal waste generated in South Africa, the case study area covers two of the large urban metropolitan municipalities in Gauteng, namely Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg, with a combined population of 8.33 million, representing nearly 15% of the South African population. Municipal solid waste characterisation studies using bulk sampling with randomised grab sub-sampling were undertaken over a 6-week period during summer in 2014 (Johannesburg) and 2016 (Ekurhuleni), covering a representative sample of the municipal waste collection routes from households in each of the two surveyed municipalities. The food waste component of the household waste (excluding garden waste) was 3% in Ekurhuleni and 7% in Johannesburg. The results indicate that an average of 0.48 kg (Ekurhuleni) and 0.69 kg (Johannesburg) of food waste (including inedible parts) is disposed of into the municipal bin per household per week in the two municipalities, respectively. This translates into per capita food waste disposal of 8 kg and 12 kg per annum, respectively, in South Africa as compared to the estimated 6–11 kg per annum in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.

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“…This is closely related to public health and sanitary [1]. In addition, reducing food waste can reduce greenhouse gas [2] and climate change [3] because waste sector contributes a lot to greenhouse gas emission. Moreover, solving food waste disposal issue can suggest relevant solution to global hunger [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Effective Incentive Design to Reduce Food Waste: A Natural Experiment of Policy Change from Community Based Charge to RFID Based Weight Charge

Lee

Jung

2017

Sustainability

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This research explores the impact of the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Household-Based Food Waste Charging System (RHWC) on the reduction of food waste in Mapo-Gu district located in Seoul city from June 2013 to July 2016. Through comparing the amount of food waste disposal between 12 apartment complexes with the RHWC policy (treatment group) and 61 apartment complexes (control group) without the policy, we attempt to identify whether the RHWC can contribute in reducing food waste. In June 2013, all these apartment complexes adopted an apartment complex unit-based food-waste system (i.e., Community-Based Waste Charging system-CWC), but, in January 2016, the 12 apartment complexes introduced the RHWC policy, while the other 61 apartment complexes kept the CWC policy. This natural experiment setting allows us to compare the difference in the quantity of food waste disposal between these two payment policies. The RHWC uses a weight based payment design, through which each household is electronically charged for the weight of food waste they disposes, while the CWC uses a group incentive system where residents pay the same price by dividing total amount of waste charge by total number of household in apartment complex. We, relying on propensity score matching and Difference-In-Difference (PSM-DID) methodology, found a significant difference in the amount of food waste disposal between these two payment systems. Our empirical finding shows that the RHWC deign can reduce more food waste than the CWC design. This study suggests that municipalities can reduce food waste through redesigning incentive mechanism in which it is able to reduce free riding by electronically identifying and monitoring how much residents throw out thanks to RFID technology.

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The costs of household food waste in South Africa

Cited by 103 publications

References 8 publications

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Household food waste disposal in South Africa: A case study of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni

Exploring Effective Incentive Design to Reduce Food Waste: A Natural Experiment of Policy Change from Community Based Charge to RFID Based Weight Charge

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