Ramadan is over and with that all enthusiasm, celebrations, eating lavish meals and iftar parties, all have come to an end. During Ramadan food production increases as each day ends on a note of sharing and eating together in large gathering. But all this  leads to 33 percent spike in food waste going to the landfill.

There is a heavy demand of meat, and other foods to meet the gatherings of Iftar and Suhour during Ramadan. As a result there is a large amount of leftover food as people tend to cook and overfill their plate more than required. Decomposed food releases methane gas that is 25 times more harmful than carbon monoxide.

An average person in Europe generates around 1.2kg of waste a day, which is less than half the per capita waste generation of 2.7kg per day in the UAE. However this waste generation doubles to 5.4kg a day during Ramadan. Clearly, this is a pertinent issue to be addressed.

Dubai Executive Council in collaboration with Dubai Carbon launched a campaign to mitigate this food wastage problem. A campaign was launched to generate awareness and to encourage everyone to conserve food and reduce their carbon footprint to reduce the daily waste stream from homes, hotels and restaurants.  The agency is working hand in hand with eateries and hotels in Dubai to collate information on daily food production and waste to give data that will help authorities to get in depth chart of the methane gas emission danger during Ramadan. The campaign is a part of  the Dubai Carbon Abetment Strategy 2021 to stem green house gases by 16 percent by 2021. This campaign will go on for 5 years and its result will be monitored over the next five years to understand the after effects of cutting carbon emissions and are in adherence to the Conference of Parties(COP 21)(Paris Climate Summit) decision to limit global temperature increase to below 1.5 degree Celsius by the turn of the century.

Inputs- Gulf News