Bangkokians race to battle food waste
By Dana MacLean



BANGKOK: -- If you were to add up all the uneaten food thrown away in Bangkok alone each year, about 93.5 million kilograms, it would weigh roughly equivalent to 34,670 Asian elephants. In fact every one of us in Southeast Asia wastes up to 11 kilograms of food each year, according to a UN report on the staggering amount of global food waste.

Meanwhile globally, 30 percent to 40 percent of everything grown gets lost between the field and the consumer, according to Achim Steiner of the UN Environment Programme. 198 million hectares of food gets wasted before it even leaves the farm, an area about the size of Mexico. Malaysia wastes 15,000 tons of food annually, or 7.5 football fields worth, and in Indonesia, Jakarta alone generates up to 3,600 tons of food waste per day.

But we’re to blame for much of that waste: Nearly one-fifth of the food we buy ends up in the rubbish heap.

“In industrialised Asia, food waste is recorded as 15 to 20 percent after it reaches the consumer, and this trend is becoming more and more common in a growing number of middle-income countries,” said Hiroyuki Konuma of the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

As with many issues, awareness prompts action, and on Sunday, more than 4,000 Bangkokians gathered on the Rama XIII Bridge for a race to raise public awareness on the dire environmental consequences of so much food wasted, a problem made worse during the past decade by growing cities and booming tourism and retail industries, with hotels and restaurants unwittingly tossing thousands of kilograms of uneaten food each month.

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/05/13/bangkokians-race-battle-food-waste

-- Coconuts Bangkok 2015-05-13

Scary with so much food wasted, when there are so many hungry people in the world!!

Bangkok has very high food wastage probably because of it's sex industry.

"Darling, I can't make it back for dinner. A client just called."

I've never seen a Thai not lick the plate clean...

I cook a lot myself (making sure I don't bloat up like many foreigners here), however there is no separate garbage collection here. I am thinking of separating it myself and dumping it in the park in front of my home to compost the ground a bit. This would be ok for vegetable stuff (got loads of it as i juice vegetables) but the bits of left over meats would surely attract animals.

I live in the suburbs of BKK and we have garbage collection in the village, but no real separation.

Nonsense... Waste is the natural byproduct of any and every commodity. Think of that the next time you buy street food and say to yourself, This doesn't taste quite right. I've got it! Let's send thousands of tons of rotten rice to UNICEF.

I cook a lot myself (making sure I don't bloat up like many foreigners here), however there is no separate garbage collection here. I am thinking of separating it myself and dumping it in the park in front of my home to compost the ground a bit. This would be ok for vegetable stuff (got loads of it as i juice vegetables) but the bits of left over meats would surely attract animals.

I live in the suburbs of BKK and we have garbage collection in the village, but no real separation.

I cook too. I buy all my ingredients, produce and meat from the local wet market. Lately there seems to be a trend of displaying their products in ballooned plastic bags. You can't smell or feel the firmness of the produce. It's a joke and the plastic bags just adds more waste to the environment. To be honest... Most Thais can't cook their own food anymore. They just buy whatever garbage is out there and eat it. They don't even know what Thai food tastes like.

Stop putting the token veg, cucumber or salad on any dish here. Nobody eats it.

Problem solved.

Stop putting the token veg, cucumber or salad on any dish here. Nobody eats it.

Problem solved.

I like the cucumber... It's usually fresher than the meat. By the way, I think that cucumbers are the most produced veggie on earth...

Stop putting the token veg, cucumber or salad on any dish here. Nobody eats it.

Problem solved.

I like the cucumber... It's usually fresher than the meat. By the way, I think that cucumbers are the most produced veggie on earth...

Good point!

Also one has to think that food vendors here do not waste any food. They sell until it is all sold or they use it to add to another dish for the next day.

As for the consumer! I don't think food is an issue with the waste except what comes out of their bodies. The waste here consists of plastic, rubber, styrofoam and other packing methods used from the vendors.

If you see some of the "street trash" served up I'd not be surprised if more was dumped !!

When I let the wife prepare Phat Phak Boong, Only half of the bunch I bought ends up on the plate. The half of the trimmings are binned. If I prepare it, at least 80 to 90 percent of what I bought is on the plate. Furthermore, they do not seem to like putting leftovers in the refrigerator. Just sayin.

only half bad if the trash is sorted before and the food returned to agriculture or pig or chicken farms rather than the dump

Stop putting the token veg, cucumber or salad on any dish here. Nobody eats it.

Problem solved.

I like the cucumber... It's usually fresher than the meat. By the way, I think that cucumbers are the most produced veggie on earth...

They might be if they were vegetables. But they are fruit.

There is a similar problem in the UK and probably most of northen Europe, but this is caused by the sell-by dates implemented by the big supermarkets, different reasons, but same effect. Very difficult problem to solve. It's all about them 2 very difficult problems, EDUCATION & CULTURE.

There is a similar problem in the UK and probably most of northen Europe, but this is caused by the sell-by dates implemented by the big supermarkets, different reasons, but same effect. Very difficult problem to solve. It's all about them 2 very difficult problems, EDUCATION & CULTURE.

It is great that a few Thais actually care about these issue

From what I have seen the majority do not give a lick

Toss trash out the windows

Let it pile up wherever

In our condo every floor has a trash room with three bins

Two for trash on for plastics

People cannot even be bothered to sort it and half just toss their bags on the floor for someone else to sort

"Who me sort garbage, not me I am too good for that" attitude

Look at the huge amount of excess food cooked for weddings, funerals or whenever entertaining. It seems to be a Thai (and Chinese) custom for even people of modest means to try to impress neighbours with how much waste they can afford, even after the obligatory doggy bags.