* This post is part of an ongoing series, "Food Waste Around the Globe." To see all related posts, click here.
Multiple actors within Australia are trying to reduce the nation’s annual food waste. According to the Food Waste Avoidance Benchmark Study 2009 conducted by the NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each household spends approximately $1,036 on wasted food, which amounts to $2.5 billion dollars within the NSW and $5 billion across Australia. This estimate means that the citizens of Australia end up throwing out more than 3 million tonnes of food each year! OzHarvest, a food charity headquartered in Sydney, measured that 3.28 million tonnes of food goes into Australian landfills each year and makes up 10% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. (When organic matter in a landfill starts to decompose, it releases methane gas, which is up to 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.)
