COP15 Post | News from the UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

By Matt Whitby

The founder of a group dedicated to raising awareness about food waste in Denmark is disappointed the topic is not on the agenda of politicians during COP15.

Selina Juul is a graphic artist who founded Stop Spild af Mad (Stop wasting food), a non-profit organisation aimed at informing people about the problems of food waste in Denmark. She says the amount of food each person in Denmark throws out every year adds up to around €950.

“Food waste is very large problem in Denmark at the moment. Every year the average Dane throws away 63 kilos of good edible food,” she says.

Juul says that 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions stem from the production of food that no one eats. The figure comes from the Danish Agricultural and Food Council, but Juul is disappointed that isn’t being discussed at COP15.

Stop Spild af Mad now has over 3700 members, including politicians and several prominent Danish chefs.

Danish chef Bo Jakobsen works at the esteemed Restaurationen restaurant in Copenhagen and has very strong opinions about food waste. He calls the amount of food thrown away in the world is ‘morally disgusting’.

“50 percent of the food we produce in the world gets wasted,” he says. “With millions of people around the world starving it’s just ridiculous.”

Juul says preventing food waste is very easy and something everyone can do something about.

“It is a very simple problem which we all could contribute to fixing. We don’t have to donate any money. The only thing we have to do is change our mindset, to only use the amount of food that we need, instead of just throwing it away,” she says.

Juul says she would really love to see some political decisions about less food waste.

“Things like building a network of donating good and fresh leftover food from companies, canteens and restaurants to homeless people,” are some of the practical measures she suggests.