Last Tuesday (7), the Council of Ministers of Spain approved a bill for the Prevention of Food Losses and Waste. This project requires all agents in the food chain to develop a prevention plan that aims to avoid waste.
Read too: Use of food: learn how to use banana peels in the kitchen
see more
AMAZING: Scientists find 'prehistoric' penguin alive in New…
‘Atlânticas’ program takes black, indigenous and quilombola women to…
After this approval, the project will be forwarded for parliamentary processing. Luís Planas, Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, said in a conference that the law is “a pioneering legal instrument to avoid inefficiency in the food chain, which brings economic consequences, due to the loss of what is produced and not used; social, due to needs not covered from a nutritional point of view; environmental, through the use of natural resources; and ethics, in a world where, unfortunately, there is still hunger”.
The project aims to establish solutions against waste that must be taken before food is sent to landfills.
If it is not possible to use food for human consumption, priority number 2 is to transform it into by-products, such as juices or jams. And yet, there is a third form of use, which is animal feed. The law also mentions the possibility of use in the production of industrial by-products, composting and biofuels.
From smaller bars to large shopping centers, they must adopt the new rules. Companies will be required to report annually how much is wasted and encourage the sale of products with an expiration date close to expiration.
“The causes of food waste are related to errors in planning and at the time of harvesting, use of inadequate production practices and handling, poor storage conditions, poor retail techniques and practices by service providers, and inappropriate behavior by consumers”, said the Minister of Agriculture.
Those who do not follow the new rules will be fined an amount ranging from 200 to 60 thousand euros in cases of serious infractions, such as preventing the donation of food and not donating leftovers to social entities. If there is a recurrence, the charge will be 500 thousand euros.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Spanish families waste 1.364 million kilos of food annually, which represents an average of 31 kilos per person. However, the new law does not provide for penalties for household waste. For Spanish houses, the focus will be awareness campaigns with guides on good practices with food.
Lover of movies and series and everything that involves cinema. An active curious on the networks, always connected to information about the web.
