A NATIONWIDE campaign targeting schoolchildren and restaurant visitors was recently launched to help eradicate food waste in Bahrain.
The National Campaign for Food Waste Reduction, ‘My Clean Plate’, aims to create a cultural shift by changing food consumption behaviours.
The social media campaign was inaugurated by Capital Governor Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa at The Avenues Mall with special programmes and events planned for schools.
According to campaign founder Aisha Fareed, a social experiment was conducted at the mall in collaboration with several restaurants to gauge awareness levels prior to launching the campaign.
“Previous campaigns launched in Bahrain tackled food wastage after the fact – which includes recycling or donating – but our campaign is different as it is proactive and aims to change individual consumption behaviour,” she told the GDN.
“We monitored behaviours and noticed three different reasons behind food wastage which include over-estimating required food quantity so people end up over-ordering.
“People would also eat directly from the main plate which contaminates it and reduces its life span while another reason is that people are shy of the concept of taking away leftovers.”
According to Ms Fareed, the campaign was created by young volunteers to reduce and eventually eradicate food wastage as well as foster and encourage a cultural shift in society by offering alternative practical solutions to current consumption behaviours.
The GDN previously reported that the United Nations Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index had revealed that people in Bahrain threw away 146,000 tonnes of food in 2020, costing Bahrain BD94.9 million.
While the quantity of waste increased by more than 60 per cent last year, experts are optimistic that a series of national awareness campaigns would lead to a gradual slide in the quantity of domestic waste over the next decade.
“We have devised several programmes targeting students from various age groups such as a simple story for kindergarten students and interactive activities to solidify the values of conserving bounties,” added Ms Fareed.
“We also collaborated with parents to set up special boards for their children and award them with gold stars if they use left-over food to feed animals, or donate it to people in need, or keep it for later consumption.
“For older students we conducted awareness campaigns at schools and student volunteers will compete to create the best video, written stories or drawings.”
The campaign also aims to achieve long-term goals of incorporating ‘responsible food consumption’ teachings within the Education Ministry’s curricula by 2025 and ensure Bahrain is no longer in the top-10 food wasting countries by 2030.
According to official reports, a new landfill and a hi-tech waste-to-energy complex are among 180 initiatives being studied by the government as part of a futuristic plan to tackle waste.
Bahrain has initiated 29 ‘rapid action’ plans, 90 short-term projects, 27 medium-term policies and 34 long-term strategies to manage waste.
Former Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Minister Essam Khalaf stated that each phase would result in lesser waste being dumped in the Hafeera landfill – which now stretches to 2.83km.
For more details about the campaign visit @mycleanplatebh on Instagram.
reem@gdnmedia.bh
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