How many times have we been told, as children, "not to leave anything on the plate which is a sin"? Or, in adulthood, have we paid attention to the expiry date of the food products purchased, feeling regret at times having to throw them away before consuming them? However, with the crisis, the latter phenomenon has significantly reduced, or at any rate awareness of it has grown "domestic food waste", now considered by 90% of Italians as "very or fairly serious".
This was revealed by the Waste Watcher report, conducted by Last Minute Market and Swg, which however demonstrates how much the phenomenon of waste still presents quite dramatic numbers today: in fact, every year we "throw away" just over 7 euros a week per family, or 213 grams of food. Figure - and quantity - which appear relatively insignificant, but which multiplied by all Italian families gives a total equal to the beauty of 8,7 billion euros a year: half a point of GDP literally thrown in the garbage.
Therefore, although the research shows that 78% of Italians are worried about this problem and that's good 72% of citizens believe that economic development must absolutely pass through environmental protection (in 2007 they were only 57%), we are still a people born of consumerism and prone to little respect for food and nature, fueling what Waste Watcher defines as the "poisonous circle" that gravitates between the refrigerator and the dustbin at home. Despite the fact that over half of us (55%) declare that they reuse leftovers or food that is no longer tasty and that almost 9 out of 10 citizens would like to receive more information on the consequences of waste and on the systems useful for reducing it.
In fact, we throw from 4,81 euros (in the most conscious cases) to 13 euros per week per family in uneaten food, with a particular preference for the healthier ones: fruit in 51,2% of cases, vegetables in 41,2% and even fresh bread in 27,8%, which after all it would be enough to freeze. The waste map also highlights significant differences between the various Regions: while in fact in Campania only 47% hardly ever throws away food, in Liguria (68%) Sardinia (66%) and Lombardy (62%) these percentages are higher than the overall average value, indicating a lower tendency to throw away food than other Regions.
But what are the causes of the odious phenomenon and the identikit of the domestic wasteful? The report produced a segmentation of 9 Italian types of waste, identified according to reasons that the interviewees indicated as primary causes in the practice of "throwing food away". Among these causes, the reason why the food "had gotten mouldy" (38,94%) or "had expired" (32,31%) stands out, or "it had gone bad outside the fridge in the case of fruit and vegetables" (26,69%), or again because "the smell or taste didn't seem good" (25,58%). To a significantly lesser extent, causes such as "having cooked too much food" (13,29%), "having miscalculated purchases" (13,15%), or even more "capricious" reasons such as having bought "things they didn't like" (6,61%).
9 different identikits are connected to these waste-types, five of which are above the average of 7,06 euros of weekly waste-cost per family: the "fanatic of cooked and eaten", the "exaggerated cook", " the deluded packaging”, “the disappointed experimenter” and “the obsessed hoarder”. Among those who claim to waste a lot, compared to lifestyle we find a greater incidence of indicators of a high state of well-being: these are those who go to concerts, the cinema, the theater and the gym, are always connected to the internet and go on holiday for at least three weeks a year.
The "wasteful" band is therefore composed with a greater incidence of males, citizens of medium-high economic status, young people, students, with gluten intolerance or allergies, professionally employed, from the South, with a high level of education and residing in a large municipality. Conversely for the low end of the distribution of the wasted amount of food, in which we find above all elderly, female, respondents with retired spouse, from the North East, retired, housewives, no children, with low education. Interviewees in this bracket do not play sports, do not go to the cinema or theatre, connect infrequently to the internet, listen to the radio very little, go to mass every Sunday, never read the newspapers and take few holidays. In a nutshell: waste, of which Italians are seriously starting to become aware, is the offspring of the consumerist mentality.
