What 'Don Quixote' teaches us about the new law against food waste

On June 7, the draft law for the Prevention of Food Losses and Waste was approved, which the autonomous communities will now have to develop for its application.

Spain thus joins France and Italy, which already had their own laws.

This law reflects the concern that exists for the use that agriculture and livestock make of natural resources and the impact they have on climate change.

According to the 2021 report from the United Nations Environment Program, if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon.

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Food waste has a great emotional burden for a large part of the urban population, in part due to our Catholic upbringing (“kid, don't leave anything on the plate because there are people who are hungry”).

We have been instilled with the idea that avoiding waste in rich countries prevents hunger in poor countries, which is not true.

While avoiding wasting a kilo of food in Spain is good, this does not make another kilo available in Africa.

This sentimental value makes it legislate for the gallery, but in practice the law cannot be complied with.

Food waste has a great emotional burden for a large part of the urban population (“child, don't leave anything on the plate because there are people who are hungry”)

About this custom of governments, Don Quixote already instructed Sancho before he took possession of the Barataria island: "Do not do many pragmatics, and if you do, make sure they are good, and above all that they are kept and fulfilled, that the pragmatic ones that are not kept the same is that if they were not, they rather imply that the prince who had the discretion and authority to make them did not have the courage to make them be kept”.

It must be recognized that the bill has an awareness-raising aspect that is necessary.

The text cites as an objective "that the companies in the chain make a self-diagnosis of their production processes, identify where food losses occur, set measures to minimize them and allocate them to other uses, for which a hierarchy of priorities is set" .

Will the plans be fulfilled?

Hardly, because achieving zero waste is not possible

Up to here, good.

Identifying in a plan where losses occur and trying to avoid them is good.

It is sanctioned with up to 60,000 euros not to have a plan.

Congratulations, I work for consultants like me!

Will the plans be fulfilled?

Hardly, because achieving zero waste is not possible.

Here we explain it with the following video:

So, what difficulties does the law present in its practical application?

As for allocating waste to other uses, the Spanish bill proposes actions according to certain priorities:

First, the donation.

I have not found in the literature any independent evaluation of the French law, which is now five years old and also prioritizes donation.

My concern is the relationship between the demand for donations (agreements with social organizations) and the supply.

If all food companies are obliged, under penalty of sanction, to donate surpluses, will it be possible to place them all?

It is a punishable offense that social enterprises do not deliver the surpluses to the beneficiaries.

What if there are many more pears than beneficiaries willing to eat them?

The intake of pears has a limit.

The second priority is to make juices and jams.

Being an uncontrolled market, the demand for juices and jams cannot be controlled.

You can't tell a manufacturer to buy a batch of conference pears because it's going to expire, if the factory already has its suppliers and manufacturing plan.

Also, they may not like the type of pear offered.

Logistics also matter: who pays for the transport?

What if there is no factory nearby?

What guarantees does the receiving factory have regarding the sanitary quality of the product?

It is a law for the gallery, because it is socially more acceptable to attack waste than meat consumption, which is what would reduce the carbon footprint the most

Finally, what is not eaten or preserved has to be composted.

Of all the points, it seems to me the most reasonable.

They will have to rectify all the municipalities that eliminated the organic container, because many will be needed now, but it is unlikely that they will be fulfilled.

In order to comply with the plans, verifying that the emergency exits are clear in the work safety plans is not the same as making sure if the conference pears had to go to social organizations, to jam or to compost.

That makes it a law for the gallery, because it is socially more acceptable to attack waste than meat consumption, which is what would reduce the carbon footprint the most.

In addition, it transfers the brown to the autonomous communities, which will have to see how they can make the law applicable and their offenses punishable.

This is the second article in a series of three on the food system.

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