BetterWe wrote recently that plastic accounts for 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that surprises most people, because plastic is filed under litter rather than climate.
Food nobody eats is worth two to three times that.
“Around 8 to 10 per cent of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of food that is ultimately squandered.”
And “some 19 per cent of food available to consumers is wasted annually, despite 783 million people going hungry”.
The emissions are not from the rotting. They are from growing, moving and chilling food that was never eaten.
Where the carbon wentThe emissions happen before the bin
The wording of the UNEP sentence is doing precise work, and it is the part that changes what the number means.
Not from the decomposition of. From the production of.
Ploughing, irrigating, fertilising, feeding animals, refrigerating, transporting, packaging, all of it happens before anyone decides whether to eat the food.
Which means the emissions are already spent by the time the choice is made. Throwing the food away does not add them. It wastes them.
It is the same structure as plastic, arrived at from the other end of the shop: the environmental cost of an object is largely settled before it reaches a household, and what happens in the bin cannot undo it.
A necessary cautionTwo facts that are not one argument
UNEP places two figures in the same sentence, and that sentence is regularly turned into something it does not say.
What the sentence says: 19% of food available to consumers is wasted, despite 783 million people going hungry.
What it does not say: that ending the waste would end the hunger. No normative source writes that, because hunger runs on access and income, not only on available quantity, food can be abundant in a country and out of reach for the people in it.
The two facts stand on their own, and each is enough. Wasting a fifth of the food that reaches consumers is a climate problem whether or not anyone is hungry; hunger is a problem whether or not anything is wasted.
One more thing about that 783 million. It is what UNEP wrote in March 2024, drawing on the FAO figure available then. The FAO's more recent count is 645 million for 2025, hunger has fallen for three consecutive years. We quote UNEP's sentence as UNEP wrote it, and we say plainly that a newer number exists, because you would otherwise find the two on this same site and have no way to tell which is current.
The whole pileWhere waste actually sits
Food is one of four categories UNEP names in the same breath. The other three are worth putting next to it.
That last one deserves a second look. Less than one per cent of clothing material becomes new clothing, “resulting in over US$100 billion in annual material value loss”. Set beside the fact that about 60% of clothing material is plastic, it says something plain: almost none of it comes back.
Both sides namedWhat UNEP names, on both sides
The list is worth reading in full because of its shape: it does not put the burden on one side only.
- Municipalities can promote urban agriculture, use food waste in farming and green-space maintenance, fund composting schemes, segregate food waste at source, and ban food from dumpsites.
- Consumers can buy only what they need, take the less attractive but perfectly edible fruit and vegetables, store food more wisely, use leftovers, compost, and donate before food spoils.
Notice which of the two lists contains the word ban. Individual habits appear in UNEP's text, and so does regulation, and the recommendation that food be kept out of landfill is addressed to authorities, not to households.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
What share of global emissions comes from food waste?
Around 8 to 10 per cent, according to UNEP: “around 8 to 10 per cent of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of food that is ultimately squandered”. What is counted here is not the rotting, it is the production.
How much food is wasted?
UNEP writes that “some 19 per cent of food available to consumers is wasted annually”. The figure covers what reaches consumers, not upstream farm losses, which are counted separately.
If we stopped wasting, would hunger end?
No, and no normative source says so. UNEP places the two facts side by side, 19% wasted, 783 million people going hungry, without claiming the first explains the second. Hunger is about access and income as much as available quantity.
Why does throwing food away emit so much?
Because the emissions have already happened. Ploughing, irrigating, fertilising, feeding animals, refrigerating, transporting: all of it is spent before the food arrives anywhere. Throwing it away cancels none of that, it simply makes the spending pointless.
How much municipal waste does the world produce?
“Humanity generates between 2.1 billion and 2.3 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste a year,” UNEP writes. Food is one of its four big categories, alongside plastics, electronics and textiles.
Which actions does UNEP name?
For municipalities: fund composting schemes, segregate food waste at source, ban food from dumpsites. For consumers: buy only what is needed, accept less attractive fruit and vegetables, store food more wisely, use leftovers, compost, and donate before food spoils.
Read nextRelated
Sources
- Eight ways to overcome the waste pollution crisis, UNEP, 28 March 2024
- UNEP press release on the Global Waste Management Outlook 2024, 28 February 2024
About this article. General and educational information. The figures and quotations come from a UN Environment Programme page of 28 March 2024, consulted in both official versions. The juxtaposition of waste and hunger is the source's own: it does not say, and this article does not say, that ending one would end the other.
Spotted an error or an out-of-date figure? Write to us: we will correct it and re-date the article. Our texts are written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked against official sources before publication, but a figure or a definition can change without us catching it. If anything here does not match what an official body tells you, they are right.