SUSTAINABILITY IN CLEANING AND FOOD.

In theory no one likes to throw food away, but what about that last piece you don't want or when you think you're going to eat at home and you go to a restaurant or just have a whim.

We are more conscious about not using a plastic straw than a truly responsible consumption, being sustainable is fundamental, ecology alone is insufficient. It is very important to take into account the production cost behind each product, and this is not only economic; water, transportation, production of packaging, production of the product and a long etc.

Every day more and more companies are betting on improving consumption habits and today we are going to show the importance of reducing waste and being, perhaps, a little more sustainableFood is a basic need that we all need and marketing takes advantage of it. Supermarkets, restaurants, bars, stores... Access is easy, but what's behind it?we are going to see three strong points.

This is where it all begins. Agriculture and livestock provide the raw materials and are the beginning of the costs. Now start imagining:

Land for planting, grazing, infrastructure, water, machinery and fuel to move it, utensils and a long, long etc. Then come the distributors and processing factories. The transportation that each one of them, packaging the food, plus the energy costs in packaging and the cost of producing the packaging. Then you have to send the products to the stores, again packaging, lights, machinery ... and finally reaches the consumer... In short, a huge tangle of expenses and costs ... but that's not all ... Do you know what are the hidden costs? There is more and more data showing the effects of conventional food production (non-organic), serious effects on ecosystems and of course on human beings, resulting unsustainable (environmentally, socially and economically speaking) in the short and medium term.citizens pay three times for food: 1 to buy them, 2 to pay the aid received by farmers from our taxes, and three, when we try to fix the harmful environmental effects and personal health caused by these conventional production systems. On the other hand, those who produce with ecological practices do not externalize them, simply because they do not generate them or do so significantly less. And this is where it gets interesting. Their production is lower, their labor costs higher and their prices higher.

These prices are what the consumer sees making them difficult to compete with mass production facilities. What is not seen is the hidden cost to decontaminate and alleviate the low quality.To make a rough calculation of hidden costs, Jules N. Pretty of the University of Essex in the UK and using that same country as a reference and with conservative estimates, obtained a figure of more than 2.3 billion pounds per year of hidden costs of industrial agriculture in that country. The data included the costs of decontaminating water from pesticides and fertilizers, the damage caused by soil erosion, and the medical costs of food poisoning and "mad cow" disease. It did not include the 4,000 million euros that farmers received in the form of subsidies, nor the 3,000 million euros of health costs as a result of inadequate food, and it was estimated that the hidden costs of organic farming would be approximately one third of those of conventional agriculture and would be offset by very positive effects (preserving biodiversity, landscapes, employment, etc.).

All discarded food that does not go into a composter or is not properly treated ends up in landfills.And what's the problem? After all, it is organic waste that decomposes.Landfills bury millions of tons of waste daily.

This generates a very negative impact on the environment since this practice produces methane and carbon dioxide, two gases that are harmful to the environment. In addition, the remains that do not evaporate can seep into the ground affecting plants and aquifers. And here, as we saw above, come the costs of disinfection, treatment...

Avoiding food waste saves money. Logical, if what you buy is consumed, that money you spent at least you use it.although many of today's data are from 2020 and due to the pandemic spending fell by 10.7% on average over the previous year.

Spanish households as a whole spent almost 446,000 million euros and average expenditure per person of 10,848 €The age group between 50 and 64 years is where the highest percentage of wasted food products is concentrated (34.2% of the total) followed by the group of 35 to 49 years (30.8%). Then come those over 65 (21.7%) and those under 35 (13.4%).and it turns out that the young independent are those who waste less food with only 4.7% of food waste, compared to about 15% in couples with young children or middle-aged and 17% in retirees.it should be noted that there are also parts of the food that we discard directly because we do not know its usefulness, that are edible or simply by preference. Among many others, the skin of potatoes and apples are edible, the skin of the banana is also edible and is also a great fertilizer for plants... we could go on with the list, but you will be entertained looking for 😉

Production costs, hidden costs, discarding and throwing away food, as we have seen, all of this represents a continuous waste and squandering of resources when we do not and even pollute those same resources, losing their value.

The planet is reaching the point of "No return" and the damage is becoming more and more severe. Food is fundamental and we cannot live without it so we must be sustainable. Without going too far back in time, and you can talk to your grandparents, you will realize that they used practically everything. Just because you eat a lettuce for lunch doesn't make you eco-friendly, avoid throwing food away and use it as much as possible.