What A Waste...

I’m sure many have noticed the front-page headline of today’s Akhbar Alkhaleej newspaper that talked about the amount of wasted food. The article spoke about how Bahrain alone produces 400 tons of wasted food on a daily basis. Can you imagine! On a daily basis. Now that is something that needs to be given much thought especially for a small island like ours.

Again, I aim not to preach or to give advices to readers when I probably do produce as much, if not more wasted foods everyday. But this article did make me stop and think about the use of all that food had it not been wasted, to those who do not have the means to provide for themselves or their loved ones regular meals. Or those that work all day in hard labor to come to the end of the day to a poorly made meal provided by cruel hearted employers.

I do have to admit that maybe hotels produce most of that number; restaurants and catering establishments, and that should have some light shed on it in the media and in social and political circles. Those private entities need to feel the responsibility toward the community and the people living in the community and not just as walking wallets that need to be fished. I admit that we did develop some means of social justice towards establishments that we think have wronged us in some way, so I hope that this can also be used to wake up those old fat businessmen and get them thinking again.

Coming back to the issue of waste, we are witnessing some efforts by young people who try to gather up waste from households to distribute to the needy and that is a very noble effort indeed, but better yet instead of giving people some leftovers which can be degrading. There should be a regular campaign to provide some education to not panic buy food whether it be in Ramadan or in other months of the year. That can be achieved by setting examples by community leaders and businesses rather than try to impose it on you and me without us being fully convinced that others are doing the same.

I did try to think of ideas and solutions to this problem, and we should all see it as a problem for us to be able to take steps in tackling it in the future. And I just wish that this article be repeated for a whole week and on the first page and in all newspapers, so that maybe people might rethink their hording and wasting of a commodity that future generations might not be able to have as much as we do today.

This might come in handy