Band 6+: A staggering amount of food is wasted every year, both in businesses and households. Why is this happening? What can be done to tackle this problem? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge.

There is a widely held view that an excessive amount of food is wasted annually not only in businesses, but also in household. There are multiple rationales behind this trend like consumer behaviors and lack of awareness about food recycling while public awareness campaigns and tax breaks can be offered so as to combat this problem.

One of the main causes of the accelerating rate of food waste is the consumer behaviors and attitudes. These terms include tendency to do over-purchasing and misunderstanding of date labels. They are stem from exaggerated advertisements which influence consumers from businesses and household to purchase more unconsciously. In order to address this issue, tax breaks and subsidies could be offered by government. By offering financial incentives for businesses that implement food waste reduction programs or invest in technologies like food preservation systems and composting facilities. These incentives will encourage consumers and enhance the level of attention of people towards the amount of food consumption.

Another problem is the lack of awareness of citizens about food recycling. As they suffer from utilizing recycling methods, factories become overproduce food and related products more and more. A considerable amount of consumers are unaware of how to repurpose leftovers or donate excess food to those in need. To solve this problem, governments can launch beneficial, widespread campaigns to educate the public about several methods of reusing food such as repurposing leftovers, attending workshops and classes, and possessing food preservation skills. If people learn how to take the advantage of the creative ways to reuse remnants and gaining information regarding freezing, fermenting, or vacuum-sealing which lengthen shelf life of food through workshops and special classes, the level of wasted food will diminish in businesses and household over the globe.

To sum up, deficits in consumer attitudes towards food consumption and scarcity of consciousness about recycling methods are the major causes of food waste problem, which can be mitigated by governmental incentives and campaigns.