The UN's Environment Program (UNEP) found that the world wastes about 17% of all the food. That's about 1.03 billion tons of food a year, which is over 93 1 billion kilograms.
According to the study, food is wasted everywhere—at home, in restaurants and in stores. And most food waste—about 61%--comes from homes. 26% of the food waste comes from restaurants. And the remaining 13% is thrown away by stores.
You must think rich countries waste more food than poor countries. That is not true. In fact, some richer countries waste far less food than average (平均水平).
People in rich countries waste less food at home because they often eat out at restaurants. For example, the US has low waste numbers for homes, but very high numbers for restaurants.
The UNEP report says it's important for countries to study food waste more carefully in order to find out ways to solve the problem. "If food waste ends up in landfills(垃圾填埋场) , it does not feed people, but feeds climate change. Food is too important to waste, so we should do something now quickly," says Martina Otto with a smile, the leader of the UNEP.
