Food waste in canteen trays of elementary schools from center region of Portugal (Poster)

Waste and hunger are major issues in the 21st century. These problems affect a great part of humanity, especially because one third of the food for human consumption is lost or wasted on a global scale, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. The catering sector, in this case, primary school canteens,is who generates more waste and consequently, it incurs a greater waste of resources, unnecessarily.

Thus, the main objective of this study was based on counting and analyzing the flow of food waste produced in primary schools canteens, in the central region, more specifically, to ascertain if the local context influences the production of waste, the amount of food that is wasted per capita, if the quantities served are as recommended, if the menu or the shift influences food wasting and if the diameter of the meal dish affect what was served and what waste was left.

The sample type was defined as non-probabilistic and the sampling technique was defined for convenience. Data were collected in situ between January and March 2013 using two measurement scales with different scale and precision levels. The sample was confined to ten schools, 5 in the periphery area and the other five in the urban center area.These schools make up a total of 855 meals, in a universe of 66 schools that make up 4150 meals. Subsequently, the data were processed using the SPSS version 21.0 software.

The main conclusions of this study are that there is a very significant food waste production in primary school canteens in the central region and also there is a greater production of food waste in periphery areas comparatively to urban center areas, resulting in an average of 40,8% of food waste,per capita, in relation to the amount which has been served.