Turkey Throws Away 14.5 Million Tons of Food in Trash Each Year

Turkey Throws Away 14.5 Million Tons of Food in Trash Each Year Turkey throws away 14.5 million tons of food in trash each year. According to the research, 45 percent of the garbage in Istanbul alone, consists of food products. Istanbul Commodity Exchange has carried out a research to prevent food waste. The research results, it was observed that Turkey throws away 14.5 million tons of food. 33 million tons of waste on average basis comes from Turkey each year. 14.5 million tons of this waste consists of food products. According to the research conducted within the framework of Istanbul Commodity Exchange’s “the Food Waste Prevention Project”, the annual $ 18 billion food export is taking place in Turkey. While 14.5 billion dollars worth of food products are thrown away, 45% of the waste in Istanbul consists of food products. The reason why this amount of food goes to waste is shown by consumers not taking into account the storage conditions and expiration dates.   What is Food Banking? Food banking is one of the efforts to prevent waste. This study aims to deliver the product to be returned for any reason to the needy instead of the company. Legislative efforts on the work continues. Stating that the portion calculation is not made when there is an open buffet, Istanbul Commodity Exchange (İSTİB) Board of Directors Treasurer Recep Salih Al continues as follows: “People do not buy as much as they should eat, they fill much more on their plates. Let's look optimistically and say 1 in 3 goes to waste. First of all, we have to be conscious consumers. We need to respect labor.” According to researches, food products make up half of the 1.3 billion tons of garbage in the world. Experts state that all people in need in the world can be satisfied even with the rate of wasted food in Europe and the USA alone.