COMCEC
Reducing Food Waste
In the OIC Member Countries
sustainability (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013; Gezondheidsraad, 2011; SD Commission,
2009). An assessment of these initiatives, how they have been developed, facilitated and
implemented can be used to guide any sustainable food system dialogue and activities proposed
by COMCEC and its member states.
It is recommended COMCEC convene and co-ordinate a forum of selected stakeholders to
develop OIC Member Country-specific policies on sustainable food systems. From this
assessment, a roadmap for future action can be develop.
7.3. D e v e lo pm e n t o f le g is la t io n a n d a r o a d m a p
The research clearly demonstrates that food waste legislation across the OIC Member Countries
is limited or lacking. There are examples of leadership in this area e.g. Qatar’s dietary guidelines,
Turkey and Egypt’s bread waste reduction laws, Pakistan’s ‘one-dish law’ and Indonesia’s ‘Law
on Food’. The rest, if they do have legislation, focus on solid waste management, which includes
organic waste such as food. This legislation tends to prioritise disposal activities and recycling.
However, in many instances not even this basic level of legislation is implemented, or it is
fragmented and inadequately monitored or adhered to. Two of the main reasons for where this
is evident is in war-torn areas, and less-developed and poor OIC Member Countries.
As a first step, COMCEC should produce a basic set of principles for drafting legislation on solid
waste management for its members that is cost-effective and feasible for the diverse range of
countries within its membership-base. This should be accompanied by a recognition that
financial aid might be required in some situations to not only develop this legislation, but more
importantly develop and build the infrastructure and systems to support the implementation of
the legislation. This might be in the form of co-ordinated access to funding, or provision of
funding among the nations or international community.
With the development or review of any legislation the food waste hierarchy should be
incorporated as a matter of principle. This will ensure that all food is adequately separated from
the waste stream and can ultimately, and where feasible, be made available for human
consumption. All stakeholders operating within the food supply chain should see it as their duty
of care to adopt the food waste hierarchy, prevent waste and apply the waste hierarchy when
they transfer waste. An example of such a hierarchy has been developed by WRAP (see Figure
25).
It is recommended that COMCEC provide information and guidance which sets out steps for
dealing with food waste to minimize the impact on the environment in relation to the hierarchy.
This guidance can be supported by the evidence-based research recently commissioned by
COMCEC on post-harvest food waste, and this research. A tailored on-line tool could also be an
appropriate mechanism for distributing guidance, and keeping stakeholders informed of
developments, latest research and examples of best practice.
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