Spare the waste

Spare the waste

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Henryk, a 58-year-old resident of the Camillian Mission homeless shelter in Warsaw, tucks into a meal. Like everyone else there, he benefits from donations from Food Bank SOS, an organisation that distributes food which often would otherwise have gone to waste.

Residents at the shelter are aware that sometimes they are served food that was once destined for the trash heap, but they say that their meals still look fresh and tasty.

. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Wanda is a 71-year-old volunteer for Food Bank SOS. She collects food from farmers at a market not far from Warsaw and then passes it on to the organisation, which gives it to the needy.

Actions like her's are coming under the spotlight during this year's World Environment Day on June 5, which is centred around a special campaign to prevent food waste.

Currently, the quantity of food that goes uneaten is immense: according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, about a third of all the food produced for human consumption worldwide every year is wasted.

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Slideshow

A man rides a bicycle loaded up with shopping bags at the Bronisze farmers' market, where Wanda pushes her cart full of vegetables for Food Bank SOS.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A man rides a bicycle loaded up with shopping bags at the Bronisze farmers' market, where Wanda pushes her cart full of vegetables for Food Bank SOS.

A farmer rests in his van at the market.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A farmer rests in his van at the market.

Another farmer hands over a box of radishes for Wanda to give to the food bank.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Another farmer hands over a box of radishes for Wanda to give to the food bank.

Wanda's cart stands piled high with vegetables at the Bronisze market.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Wanda's cart stands piled high with vegetables at the Bronisze market.

She pushes along the cart.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

She pushes along the cart.

Krzysztof, a worker at Bank Food SOS, pushes a trolley full of vegetables that Wanda collected.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Krzysztof, a worker at Bank Food SOS, pushes a trolley full of vegetables that Wanda collected.

Krzysztof records the amount of produce received at a Bank Food SOS stockroom.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Krzysztof records the amount of produce received at a Bank Food SOS stockroom.

Crates of vegetables are stored there.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Crates of vegetables are stored there.

Wanda holds bunches of radishes in the Food Bank SOS stockroom.
. BRONISZE, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Wanda holds bunches of radishes in the Food Bank SOS stockroom.

A man pulls a palette loaded with vegetables at a Food Bank SOS warehouse in Reguly, not far from Warsaw.
. REGULY, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A man pulls a palette loaded with vegetables at a Food Bank SOS warehouse in Reguly, not far from Warsaw.

A nun from a charity organisation fills out documents at the Food Bank SOS office, before being given a consignment of vegetables collected by Wanda.
. REGULY, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A nun from a charity organisation fills out documents at the Food Bank SOS office, before being given a consignment of vegetables collected by Wanda.

She fills out more documents as she receives the vegetables.
. REGULY, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

She fills out more documents as she receives the vegetables.

Residents eat a meal at the Camillian Mission homeless shelter, which receives donations from Food Bank SOS.
. WARSAW, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Residents eat a meal at the Camillian Mission homeless shelter, which receives donations from Food Bank SOS.

Kitchen assistant Mieczyslaw (left), 55, and chef Eugeniusz, pose for a photograph in the homeless shelter's kitchen.
. WARSAW, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Kitchen assistant Mieczyslaw (left), 55, and chef Eugeniusz, pose for a photograph in the homeless shelter's kitchen.

A resident is passed a dish of food at the shelter.
. WARSAW, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A resident is passed a dish of food at the shelter.

A chef there holds out a plate of food.
. WARSAW, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

A chef there holds out a plate of food.

"Shooting this story gave me a picture of how people perceive the freshness of food."
Kacper Pempel, Reuters photographer

When I started working on a story about food waste, I was shocked by the estimates provided by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization that 1.3 billion tonnes of food - equivalent to the amount produced by the whole of sub-Saharan Africa - is wasted every year.

That is why I started thinking of ways to prevent such waste and it’s what led me to a food bank organisation and to a volunteer who works for them in Bronisze agricultural market, not far from Warsaw.

Wanda is a 71-year-old volunteer who collects food, mostly vegetables, for Food Bank SOS, which then distributes it to charity organisations. I've met her twice at Bronisze market, where she was walking around and pushing her cart between farmers, asking them if they had any goods for charity. She has a strong character and understands how to deal with the vendors, who have known her for nine years.

In many cases, the food the farmers give to Wanda would not go on sale and would end up going to waste. Sometimes, however, they can be quite hesitant to give her their produce and they tell her to come a couple of days later when the vegetables are not fresh enough to sell to their customers.

One of the charities that receives food from Food Bank SOS is Camilian Mission homeless shelter, a place of around 120 residents where I had the chance to take more pictures to illustrate my story.

I was at the shelter when food was prepared and served there. It is always hard to take photos of people who have lost their homes. As I expected, not all of them wanted to have their faces shown in my pictures, but we started to talk and I explained the story I was working on. They knew that often the food they are served was intended for the garbage. Nevertheless, they said that the meals still looked fresh and tasty.

Both a representative from Food Bank SOS and the director of a homeless shelter told me that they would get more food if supermarkets, restaurants and catering companies did not have to pay taxes on donations. For this economic reason, these kinds of companies decide to dump food rather than giving it away.

Food Bank representatives and the director of the shelter say that, according to Polish law, only the actual producers of the food can donate it without paying tax.

Shooting this story gave me a picture of how people perceive the freshness of food. In Communist Poland, shelves used to be practically empty but nowadays, in a free market economy, supermarkets are full of all sorts of goods and people tend to buy more and more. In my opinion, they often buy more than they need, which is one of the reasons for food going to waste.

On the other hand, Poland is not a particularly rich country and buying food accounts for a large proportion of people’s household budgets here – more than in other EU countries. So in my experience people are careful about wasting food.

For the food that is destined to be thrown away, however, it is great that we have people like Wanda who ensure that some of it is saved and can be consumed by those who need it.