Landing in the first world country of England in the July of last year was almost overwhelming in many ways. The choice of products and especially foods is unbelievable, basic services are great and the abundance of everything everywhere is just incredible. Coming from a developing nation such as South Africa where times are getting harder everyday, it was almost surreal and for a while I admit I thought it was great.

I began to enjoy the culture of spending and the accumulation of things I didn’t need, Of eating anything I wanted when I wanted and throwing away an amazing amount of spoiled food in the process.

The Culture of Waste

It slowly began to dawn on me though that I was becoming increasingly greedy and it started to make me think that England’s and quite possibly all the first world’s culture is quickly becoming one of greed and wastefulness. Everywhere you go you’re confronted with advertisements on how to look more beautiful or how you can save more money and how you can buy more with that money you save.More, more, more, more! And it’s everywhere!

The English Pub Observations

For several months I had been working in a small village pub in a place called Bentworth out near Alton in the Hampshire County. I had been serving drinks and large plates of food to wealthy affluent customers with much more “class”, culture and educations than many of us back in South Africa could ever have dreamed of. And yet I’m left with much disappointment and disgust at how much was and still is taken for granted on a daily basis.

Watching closely I have been able to estimate that on average this small establishment would produce between 50 to 100 meals a day. All with salads, vegetables or breads as side accompaniments. And on average I would say that at least 80 percent of those meals come back with most if not all of the side foods left untouched. This food due to ridiculous health and safety standards is immediately tossed and forgotten. Surely I’m not insane to think that this food could be used again. Couldn’t we at least put it into bags and send it to shelters? There are people who would welcome a few hot vegetables as a meal and I’m sure wouldn’t mind the fact that Lord Lardass or Dame Ditzy might have nudged it to the side of the plate with their fingers or used utensils. Why does this food have to be discarded so wastefully?

Why So Much Waste?

I guess as a journalist we are meant to remain impartial and not give in to our emotions but I’m sorry this practice by a so called first world country makes me sick. I remember as a child being told by my parents to eat everything on my plate as there were people in the world that had nothing. I used to think this was ridiculous as how could we take this food and get it to them without it going rotten?

Looking back I think the message they were trying to get across to me was that I should not intentionally go out of my way to be greedy. In South Africa its easier to understand why not to be when you drive through yet another squatter camp on your way to work and realize that in that little shack made of scrapes of tin sheeting and discarded cardboard boxes (saturated by the cold rain of the previous night) are people. I think in many ways we have forgotten that other people exist around us. I mean it’s hard to sympathies in a lot of ways because being trapped in your own body makes you kind of selfish. I know I am and its made me feel rotten for so long that maybe I’m just writing this article to make myself feel a little less guilty and able to munch down on my next fat over-sized meal.

Think About It

Be it selfish or not, let’s look at this for a minute or two. If on average at this very small pub where I work, we serve about 50 meals in a day (this is extremely conservative) and of those fifty meals only 50 percent of them (yet again very conservative estimation) come back with only a floret of broccoli on them (most come back with about 6 florets of broccoli, a few cauliflower pieces and some carrots to boot) that’s 25 florets per day we throw. So let’s try being reasonable and saying that per day we throw away one entire head of broccoli. So in a year that’s lets say 350 heads taking into account that maybe the pub would be closed(which is highly unlikely since we are open 7 days a week but yeah anyways)

350 heads of broccoli is nothing really for a pub that churns out roughly 17500 meals in a year based on my much underestimated averages.

But lets look at this based on the UK. According to my research, there are roughly 58000 pubs to be found across the UK, this does not include restaurants and fast food outlets.

So let’s do the British thing and be conservative about this again. Let’s say only 50 percent of these pubs serve food. So that’s about 29000 pubs. Now let’s apply the theory that most of these 29000 would waste roughly a head of broccoli a day. That takes our numbers to 29000 heads of broccoli a day multiplied by a conservative average of only 350 days of trading will bring us to an amount of 10 million one hundred and fifty thousand heads of broccoli thrown away a year. An average head would weigh almost a kilogram bringing it to an astounding 10150000 kilograms of edible food thrown away as garbage.

Now obviously we can’t take this waste and use it for public consumption because the great and all wise health and safety would have a fit, but what about this for an idea…

What If every pub across the UK bought one less broccoli a day from the veg suppliers or better yet! What if every pub serving food bought the one head of broccoli in theory but then requested it be given as a donation. How you ask?

Each broccoli head could be broken up into its little florets as usual and then (wait for this crazy idea) we could freeze it as usual and ship it out to countries in dire need of fresh foods.

Lets be honest I’m sure a country such as Sierra Leone with a few million refuges begging for a decent meal would not be too bothered with the strict codes of health that England measures its food standards with. I mean who cares if the veg gets there and it may have a little freezer burn on the edges or that the packaging might be a little dirty from the cargo hold of the vessel that brings it to them. Its food that will feed people rather than the holes of landfills!

I could go on about the other waste that I see thrown everyday such as the liters upon liters of real ales that could be gathered and sent as a fertilizer for crops in impoverished lands. Or even the water wasted every day in the cleaning of dishes and utensils but alas I fear maybe I’ve opened up one can of worms too many for one day.

Hope its a little food for thought at least…