Food to Eat, Feed Animals Single Largest Use of Water, Film Says
Growing food to consume and to feed animals that people eat is
the largest use of Earth’s fresh water supply yet almost a third
of the world’s food is lost or wasted before it reaches
consumers’ mouths, according to a short film launched at World
Water Week in Stockholm. “Taste the Waste of Water” by Germany’s
Valentin Thurn was shown at the Stockholm event, which is
focused this year on how to use less water to feed the planet
and wraps up tomorrow. McKinsey & Co. estimates the global
economy wastes $252 billion annually on food that’s grown,
processed or shipped and never eaten, mainly in Europe and North
America. That’s a third of the world’s supply, or 1.3 billion
tons of food that could feed the hungry. “What kind of corporate
management would accept 33 percent in annual losses,” the film
narrator asks. Throwing away a single apple in effect means
wasting as much water as flushing the average toilet seven
times. Tossing out a liter (quart)