Zeroing in on Food Waste: Measuring, understanding and reducing food waste
(J Boland and D Dawson with J Coveney, P Ward, M Stasiak, A Gray and K Thompson)
Australians waste nearly 50% of the food they buy, producing over 3
million tonnes of garbage worth more than $5b and increasing our carbon
footprint through transport costs and green house gases from
decomposition. This represents a significant opportunity. However,
reducing food waste has proved difficult because the reasons for over
purchasing are not rational; they have strong emotional and cultural
determinants. Change this behaviour requires understanding food
purchase, preparation, recycling and disposal as socio-cultural as well
as economic behaviour. This project will embed an anthropologist within
homes and restaurants to understand why people waste food and enable the
development of effective interventions to reduce this waste.
Funding
Zeroing in on Food Waste: Measuring, understanding and reducing food waste, ARC Linkage Project # LP0990554, 2009-2012, Drew Dawson and John Boland (UniSA), J Coveney and PR Ward (Flinders), M Stasiak, ZeroWaste SA, A Gray, LGA, SA. Research Associate Kirrily Thompson.