Initiate “Clear Your Plate” Campaign

17 per cent of all food is just dumped according to the Food Waste Index Report 2021.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash

With the continuous improvement of people’s living conditions, wasting a little bit of food every meal seems to have become a habit. In addition, in recent years, eating broadcast driven by the “king of appetite” craze, some platform anchors through fake eating to “cheat” clicks. This excessive pursuit of traffic and profit not only makes the “eating culture” to extremes and deformed, but also wastes a lot of valuable food resources, causing adverse social impact.

Moreover, wasted food is polluting our environment, 8–10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with unconsumed food. The global food system has a profound impact on the environment, and producing far more food than is consumed only increases the pressure on the environment. The world’s arable land, forests and grasslands are being degraded, deforestation contribute to greenhouse gas, overfishing and mismanagement have led to over exploitation of marine fish stocks.

A large amount of food is wasted while there are still 957 million people across 93 countries who do not have enough to eat. Although on the surface it may seem that food waste in some areas is not strongly correlated with food shortages in other regions, the act of individuals not wasting food can reduce this imbalance. For example, by not wasting food, people donate excess funds and food to areas where food is in short supply.

Eliminating wasteful behavior might be considered to be of a minor matter, but if everyone say no to waste food, it would make a significant impact. Start initiate “Clear Your Plate” campaign in our local community to raise people’s awareness of not wasting food, starting from finishing food in their plates. Follow the steps to design your own “Clear your Plate” campaign. What’s the situation in your community? What are the cause? How do you want to solve it?

Photo by Richard Bell on Unsplash

Step 1

1. Define the problem. Describe people’s eating habit and food waste situation.
2. Find the reason behind the problem.
3. Find out who is your target audience. Who are you aiming at? Any specific group or places like restaurants?

Step 2

1. List solutions that already existed.
2. Brainstorm new ideas for solving food waste issue in your community. Discuss with your teammates, get as many ideas as possible for this issue.
3. Sketch your ideas. Choose the most feasible one and make a draft, plan the steps ahead.

Step 3

1. Prototype one of the best ideas. Make a prototype of your solution. It can be a poster, a website, an application or something physical.
2. Share with your friends for some feedback. Make a 10min presentation​ and share your idea and prototype.

Self-evaluation

Reference

Wasting food just feeds climate change, new UN environment report warns

2021 is going to be a bad year for world hunger | United Nations

https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021