Social and environmental analysis of food waste abatement via the peer-to-peer sharing economy.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32157082.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-14899-5 and PMC identifier 7064594.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Reducing food waste is widely recognized as critical for improving resource efficiency and meeting the nutritional demand of a growing human population. Here we explore whether the sharing economy can provide meaningful assistance to reducing food waste in a relatively low-impact and environmentally-sound way. Analyzing 170,000 postings on a popular peer-to-peer food-sharing app, we find that over 19 months, 90t of food waste with an equivalent retail value of £0.7 million were collected by secondary consumers and diverted from disposal. An environmental analysis focused on Greater London reveals that these exchanges were responsible for avoiding emission of 87-156t of CO2eq. Our results indicate that most exchanges were among users associated with lower income yet higher levels of education. These findings, together with the high collection rates (60% on average) suggest that the sharing economy may offer powerful means for improving resource efficiency and reducing food waste.