More than 2.1 million saved from waste food – TVI24

The plan against food waste in Lisbon saved last year more than 2.1 million wasted meals, which ended up distributed by need, informed this Friday the Municipal Commissioner to Fight Food Waste.

according to councilman centrist João Gonçalves Pereira, who heads the Commission, between May 2015 and May this year, were “recovered 2,134,704 meals by 94 partner organizations of municipal combat food waste, working in 24 parishes of Lisbon.”

“a recovery value that is not measurable,” he added at a press conference to present the report to the swing plane, noting that “there is no country in the world that has a food network that covers an entire city.”

in 2015, the Community Life and Peace (FMC), one of the partners, reused 768,000 euros in meals distributed, according to a social impact system that the association has implemented since there two years, he revealed, for its part, Henrique Joaquim responsible for CVP.

The CVP supports 60 households with food, about 250 people, some on a weekly basis, “but always in a transient” because the organization’s goal is to “get people off the street and create conditions for them to return to [live] autonomously”.

” not only we find people in situations of homelessness and people who typically are on the street, as we found several years ago – and in recent years this number was perhaps the most increased – people who, not being on the street, are in severe social vulnerability and seeking the support of volunteers in order to meet a need that is the power “ , he said.

Henry Joaquim also pointed out that food distributed “are not leftovers,” but foods “that were confecionados that day, put on that day and packaged appropriately” in the Authority for food and Economic Safety (ASAE) “has been a key partner.”

the municipal program to combat food waste already has two cores officially constituted within social parish committees in Bethlehem and Santa Clara, and should have cores in all other parishes except Campolide, which had in operating a similar project itself.

This involvement of parish councils is highlighted by the councilman of Social rights of the Council of Lisbon, João Afonso, noting that “work against food waste is a workplace” because is the local level that we know better “the real expression of the territory needs and is also where the volunteers.”

One third of food produced for human consumption worldwide is wasted, the equivalent to 1.3 billion tons per year, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

in Europe, the annual waste goes in the order of 30 to 50% of the food produced, representing 89 million tons of food.

in Portugal are wasted about a million tons of food per year.