A UAE official has said fines could eventually be imposed on households generating high levels of food waste in an effort to encourage more responsible consumption.
Khuloud Hasan Al Nuwais, who heads the UAE’s food loss and waste initiative, Ne’ma, said making people pay for how much they waste may be the only way to change attitudes to a pressing issue of global concern.
According to The National, Al Nuwais, secretary general of the body’s national steering committee, said the scale of food waste in the Emirates was “deeply distressing”.
Ne’ma – which translates to “blessing” in English – estimates Dh6 billion ($1.63 billion) of food is wasted in the Emirates annually.
Each person in the UAE wastes an average 224kg of food each year, according to the Food Sustainability Index 2020, almost double that of figures in Europe and North America.
“I don’t believe that the right approach is to immediately start enforcing fines, but it is coming,” Al Nuwais told The National.
“If you start paying a fee based on how much waste you generate – like water and electricity – only then will you start becoming conscious about how much food you are wasting.”
Nationwide drive
Ne’ma was established in March 2022 to coordinate government agencies, the private sector, non-government organisations and society to reduce food loss and waste across the supply chain.
The campaign aims to support a nationwide drive to reduce food waste by 50 per cent by 2030. (NewsWire)