In the UK the sad truth is we are very accustomed to the idea of poverty and those without food going hungry. With the Trussell Trust’s mission statement as a community project to tackle poverty and exclusion, working with marginalised people in real need providing practical care and support there is a clear need, frustratingly ignored by the majority of supermarkets and chain food shops.
France are taking action and are now the first country in the world, who hopefully others will take after, in banning supermarkets from disregarding and destroying unsold food. Forced to donate to charities and food banks, as of Wednesday 10th February 2016 the goods which are of an acceptable quality will be binned no longer.
The distribution of these foods will be to charities and may feed millions of those in need every year! Anti-poverty campaigners have been fighting for this verdict with the bill passed in December and calling on the rest of the world to follow, this is a great news story which will hopefully be implemented in a store near you soon. Calling on these charities will require extra volunteers and equipment to get all jobs done highly efficiently as the donation amount will see a continual spike of interest.
The Guardian published a report in 2015 which presented UK households throwing away over 7million tonnes of food in 2012 alone. An amount to “fill London’s Wembley Stadium nine times over”, we need to take action and follow our neighbours into caring for our communities through government action.
You can support the great work done for this cause in the UK by checking out the Givey page of the Trussell trust, and becoming involved by volunteering and being aware of community action.
Written by Emma Barnett
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