Arash
Derambarsh, a local councillor who kickstarted fight against food waste in his
Paris suburb, wants to convince more countries to follow France’s example
The Guardian, Kim Willsher in Paris, Monday 25 May 2015
People shop in a supermarket in southern France. Photograph: Rremy Gabalda/AFP/Getty Images |
A
councillor whose campaign against food waste led to a law forcing French
supermarkets to donate unwanted food to charity has set his sights on getting
similar legislation passed globally.
Arash Derambarsh. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP |
Arash
Derambarsh said it was “scandalous and absurd” that food is wasted and in some
cases deliberately spoiled while the homeless, poor and unemployed go hungry.
Derambarsh
– a municipal councillor for the “Divers Droit” (diverse right) in Courbevoie,
north-west of Paris – persuaded French MPs to adopt the regulation after a
petition gained more than 200,000 signatures and celebrity support in just four
months.
The amendment was approved as part of a wider law – the Loi Macron – that covers
economic activity and equality in France and is expected to be passed by the
national assembly on Tuesday, entering the statute books shortly afterwards.
It will bar
supermarkets from throwing away food approaching best-before dates and
deliberately poisoning products with bleach to stop them being retrieved by
people foraging through bins.
Now
Derambarsh wants to convince European countries and the wider world to adopt
similar bans. “Food is the basis of life, it is an elementary factor in our
existence,” he told the Guardian.
Arash Derambarsh began his drive to fight food waste and food Poverty in Courbevoie. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP |
“I have
been insulted and attacked and accused of being naive and idealistic, but I
became a local councillor because I wanted to help people. Perhaps it is naive
to be concerned about other human beings, but I know what it is like to be
hungry.
“When I was
a law student living on about €400 a month after I’d paid my rent, I used to
have one proper meal a day around 5pm. I’d eat pasta, or potatoes, but it’s
hard to study or work if you are hungry and always thinking about where the
next meal will come from.”
Derambarsh
started his campaign by collecting and distributing unwanted food from his
local supermarket. “Every day we’d help around 100 people. Half would be single
mothers with several children, pensioners or public workers on low salaries,
the other half would be those living on the streets or in shelters,” he said.
Derambarsh
is planning to table the issue – via the campaign group ONE, founded by U2
singer Bono – when the United Nations discusses its Millennium development goals to end poverty in September as well as at the G20 economic summit in
Turkey in November and the COP21 environment conference in Paris in December.
An
estimated 7.1m tonnes of food is binned in France each year – 67% of it by
consumers, 15% by restaurants and 11% by shops. The figure for food waste
across the EU is 89mtonnes while an estimated 1.3bn tonnes are wasted
worldwide.
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