Food waste could rise by almost a third by 2030 when more than 2 billion tonnes will be binned, researchers said on Tuesday, warning of a “staggering” crisis propelled by a booming world population and changing habits in developing nations. The United Nations has set a target of halving food loss and waste by 2030. But the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study found that if current trends continued, it would rise to 2.1 billion tonnes annually - an amount worth $1.5 trillion. “We are seeing a real crisis at a global level,” one of the study’s authors Esben Hegnsholt told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The amounts of waste and the social, economic and environmental implications are serious if we don’t change the trajectory. When we fight food loss and waste, we also fight hunger, poverty and global warming.” Around a third of the world’s food is lost or thrown away each year. Currently, we waste 1.6 billion tons of food annually, worth about $1.2 trillion dollars.

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