Application, website soon to take your waste food to needy

PATNA: Remember how as kids we hated the

kaddu ki sabzi

and threw it away the moment parents left the dining room? A sense of guilt seeped in once we were caught and lectured about the plight of children starving in distant imaginary lands.

Take this: Roughly 1.3 billion tonnes of edible

food

produced in the world is discarded every year. Had only one fourth of the food wasted globally been saved, it would have been sufficient to feed 900 million people all over.

The question that arises is how the food wastage can be reduced, if not stopped completely. The ‘Don’t You Waste Food (DYWF)’ campaign claims to answer this query.

Launched in Patna on Wednesday, the campaign aims to reduce food wastage in Tier-II and Tier-III cities with the help of its mobile app.

The buzz, however, has to be generated at the individual level, claims

Babaji

, the man behind the DYWF initiative. He says, “We will select 50 schoolkids to function as our brand ambassadors. We will also organise awareness walks and screening of short films to sensitise people, including schoolchildren, to the harmful effects of food wastage. At another level, we will work with grassroots workers and organizations to reach out to people.”

The quinquagenarian, who calls the self-funded DYWF initiative a “drop in the ocean”, is quite optimistic about its results though. “We are also planning to place small boxes at restaurants, hotels and food joints. Once filled with uneaten meals at the end of the day, these packed boxes can be distributed among the needy,” Babaji says, hoping to take the campaign all over the country after its roll-out in Bihar.

While a website (dywf.org) is being developed, the DYWF app will be launched early next year. The website and the app will have a list of local organisations which you can contact in case there is excess food at your home, office or elsewhere. A team of volunteers will soon get in touch with you, pick up the food and distribute it among the hungry.

A DYWF mag is to be published and a summit is also planned to be organised in April next year to spread awareness.

Walk in city today

Schoolchildren, NCC cadets, academics and advocates, among others, are expected to take part in an anti-food wastage walk from the

Red Cross Society

building at 9.30am on Thursday.