Ask Lemmy

No, and while less food waste is a positive, from what I can find even in France it is only illegal for fresh food retailers (who are only responsible for 14% of waste, and also get massive tax breaks for the pleasure of donating it), not manufacturers (agriculture, processing plants, restaurants, collectively responsible for at least 67% of waste), and for insight in to why, here is an excerpt from 1939 book The Grapes of Wrath:

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

In New York City, it is illegal for restaurants and food stores to throw away perfectly edible food. They are required to donate it, and the city even comes and picks it up.

There is a movement to make it illegal, but the goal isn't to feed the needy. It's to help keep it out of landfills, incinerators, and waterways.

For example: https://www.bergmanndirect.co.uk/articles/new-food-waste-regulations-in-england

That would be great, here they use trash compactors to destroy the food to prevent hungry people from going through the trash and filling their bellies.

EDIT: Whole Foods in particular does this, and I think I've seen Walmart doing it as well. Also, I worked at a grocery store where I was instructed to destroy the food when I threw it into the dumpsters to prevent people from being able to eat it, though they were too cheap to actually buy and operate a trash compactor.

Worth noting that the French law only deals with food waste from supermarkets as far as I know. Not households or agriculture. It's a great start, though.

In America it's encouraged. Why? cause "fUcK pOOr pEePlE" that's why

No, but for some reason taking food stores throw away is.

No, but oddly the reverse is the case, where it's illegal to feed the homeless. They're afraid of poisonings.

Who’s throwing away perfectly fine food that could be donated? By which I mean, from one’s own home.

“Ugh, I bought two loaves of bread? In the bin with you!”

I think in Finland, food is rarely if at all donated from shops because it would create some opportunities for employees to effectively steal food by marking it as throw away. Same with other items. Also, expired food would be a liability hazard. Surplus or closer to the date stuff can be sold at heavy discounts, though. Unsold things finally just need to be disposed of somehow.

I hope not. I threw out a box of tins yesterday that I had forgotten about in a remote corner of the basement. On the other hand they were so many years past their "best before" date they might no longer qualify as food...

In South Korea, you have to separate food scraps before throwing them out. It's then made into livestock feed.

No. It should be though. To be fair though a lot does get donated, just not enough. It doesn't help that the "best by" date system is often inaccurate and somewhat arbitrary.

In Japan, it’s not illegal country wide but may against rules in some regions.

In the EU it is mandatory to sort your food into separate food trash.