Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FOODWASTE (Food Waste In Denmark and Sweden - Understanding Household Consumption Practices to develop Sustainable Food Care)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2016-04-01 do 2018-03-31
Thus, the project is an attempt to also highlight the notion that consumers and their behavior are not the only possible factors when food gets wasted. If we wish to reduce food waste, then, efforts must be made in various places along the food supply chain, in retail, and in recycling and waste management. It is not enough to inform and educate consumers.
The project contributes to an understanding of food waste that factors in the problems in reducing food waste on the one hand, and highlights the possibilities for realizing less wasteful practices, on the other hand. As such, the project both puts into question the current emphasis on individual consumers in waste policy and campaigns, while attending to how consumers develop creative ways of developing their own anti-wasting practices.
The overall objectives of the project are: 1) to gain insight into how consumers in Denmark and Sweden handle their food in everyday life, how they use it, waste it and/or avoid wasting it; 2) develop an original theoretical repertoire that enables the framing of pertinent questions and helps to conceptualize the insights gained; 3) develop innovative ethnographic methods which make it possible to research relevant household practices and to differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices; 4) contribute to developing food care techniques that help to avoid food wasting.
In terms of the wider societal implications of the project, this means that efforts to reduce food waste should
1) take into account the various and sometimes conflicting complexities involved in the generation and avoidance of food waste - organic fruits, for example, go bad quicker than non-organic if not stored properly; in efforts to avoid foods from going bad, more packaging materials are used, meaning food waste is avoided, while other kinds of waste is generated;
2) analyse the role played by excessive production and retail and supermarket strategies, and the potential consequences this has on consumption and consumers;
3) highlight and cultivate those food saving and food rescuing practices that do work, rather than focus on those that do not