At 19, Regina Tchelly left her small hometown in northeastern Brazil and arrived in Rio de Janeiro with a dream: to become a famous chef.
When she got there, Tchelly, who was raised to never waste food, was saddened to see how often street vendors threw away good food.
This led Tchelly down a new culinary path. She began bringing home discarded food from her job as a housekeeper and created innovative recipes, such as banana peel gingerbread and broccoli stem quiche. This experience eventually led her to found Favela Orgânica. The organization has taught thousands of low-income individuals, street vendors, and chefs to waste less food, combat hunger, and address the often devastating environmental effects that accompany food waste.
“There shouldn’t be such a thing as throwing away,” says Tchelly, now 42. “We are throwing away our planet. We need to change our behavior. We are in a climate crisis. Here, people learn how healthy food and sustainable habits can benefit both our health and the planet.”
Tchelly is part of a growing movement in Brazil to reduce food waste, which is rapidly spreading around the world.
Globally, households waste more than 1 billion meals a day despite up to 783 million people going hungry, according to the recently released Food Waste Index Report 2024 from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). About 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and decomposition of food that ends up being thrown away.
Brazil, the sixth most populous country in the world, produces about 20 million tons of food waste each year. Approximately 27 million people in the country are considered food insecure, according to government estimates. But through data collection, policy formulation, and collaboration, the Brazilian government—from federal to local levels—and community groups are actively working to reverse the trend.
“Reducing food waste is not only essential to address food insecurity but also to tackle the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste,” says Ruth Zugman do Coutto, Head of the UNEP Climate Change Mitigation Division.
“With an estimated 80 percent of food to be consumed in cities by 2050, it is crucial to engage local governments to act on food waste. We can use the dense urban networks of cities to redistribute, upcycle, or recycle food and nutrients.”
Reshaping the Menu
In 2010, Brazil established a national solid waste policy, which mandates municipalities to implement composting systems. However, this legislation does not specify measures to prevent food waste.
Through collaboration with UNEP, nonprofit organizations, and municipal leaders, Brazil is developing a new draft national policy on food waste reduction and composting. It is expected to come into effect in early 2025. The policy will provide mayors and other relevant stakeholders across the country with guidelines to reduce food waste and implement composting projects.
Brazil is also developing its first national strategy on the circular economy, which will include a focus on reshaping food systems to minimize waste in production, distribution, and consumption.
“With UNEP’s support, we were able to understand that the federal government needed to do something more integrated and highlight this issue for everyone,” says Adalberto Maluf, National Secretary of Urban Environment and Environmental Quality of Brazil. “We are wasting more than 22 percent of our food. [Without action,] we will never achieve zero hunger goals.”
Driving Change
Back in Rio de Janeiro, under Tchelly’s leadership, Favela Orgânica offers workshops on what she calls “alternative gastronomy”: maximizing the use of ingredients, promoting home composting, and enabling urban gardening in small spaces. This helps community members rethink their relationship with food and reduce waste.
The organization is currently training 160 women in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro on urban gardening and the importance of a life cycle approach, ensuring that any leftover product is returned to the food chain.
Experts say this work is particularly important for people living in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro who face food insecurity and lack electricity, running water, and sanitation.
As the Brazilian government establishes its ambitious and multifaceted approach to overcoming food waste, community-level work remains essential. Only when governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals work together can they adopt a life cycle approach and move towards zero waste in the food sector and beyond, says Porpino.
“The integrated use of food has to be part of our daily lives, and working with schools is important,” says Tchelly, whose work has taken her across Brazil. “We give a person the seed, teach them to plant the seed, harvest the seed, and return the seed to the Earth.”
Source: www.unep.org