This year’s International Day of Zero Waste, places the focus directly on food: what we eat, what we waste, and how we can move towards a more “circular future.”

Every year we throw away about 1 billion tonnes of edible food. This represents a staggering one-fifth of all food available to consumers. From farm to consumer’s mouth, 20% of the food is wasted and this impacts both people and the environment.

Around 60 per cent of food waste happens at the household level. The rest comes mostly from food service and retail, the result of inefficient food systems – including production, distribution and consumption. Tackling this issue requires redesigning these systems, transitioning towards a more sustainable, circular approach grounded in efficiency, resilience and sustainability.

For this transition to succeed, we all have a role to play.

Governments can:

• Advance food waste prevention through climate and biodiversity plans and national policies on circularity, waste, food systems, agriculture and urban development and promote measurement and monitoring. 
• Strengthen public–private partnerships.
• Signal leadership and take action by joining the Food Waste Breakthrough.

Businesses can: 

• Set measurable food waste reduction targets and integrate them into existing sustainability commitments.
• Innovate to transition to circular food systems and improve efficiency across supply chains.
• Join the Food Waste Breakthrough to scale solutions and share progress.

Consumers can:

• Plan, buy, store and prepare food mindfully to cut waste and save resources.
• Support food recovery, redistribution and composting initiatives.
• Help make food waste socially unacceptable through everyday action.

A zero-waste future is possible when we all work together – do your part by consuming thoughtfully, recovering surplus food, and working to build circular food systems. Let’s ensure our food is valued, not wasted.

A Circular Food System moves from the traditional and linear “take-make-dispose” model into a regenerative approach that minimizes waste, optimizes resource use, and recycles nutrients back into the ecosystem.

________________________________

International days and weeks are occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity. The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool.