Cinnamon Grand advises buy wisely, cook carefully and eat it all

Wednesday, 6 March 2013 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Cinnamon Grand held a seminar on food waste management and its importance, for associates recently. Organised by the hotel’s sustainability team, the seminar focused on the current situation with regard to food waste and the future consequences, if monitoring and management is not implemented.

Central Environmental Authority Assistant Director Mahesh Jaltota addressed the gathering, highlighting the importance of food waste management and its implications, especially in the context of the hospitality industry.

As one of the largest and busiest hotels in Colombo, with a 1,200 strong employee force and housing over 12 eclectic restaurants, food waste management remains a vitally important concept to Cinnamon Grand. The seminar was well attended by associates from all departments in the hotel.

Statistics from the UN food and agricultural organisation show that 925 million people in the world, amounting to 13.1% of the estimated world population of 6.8 billion (one in seven people) starve, with more than 30% (one to three billion tons) of the world’s food production ending up as garbage, which would otherwise be enough to feed three billion people.

That over nine million people (out of which five million are children) die worldwide each year, due to hunger and malnutrition, was an eye opener for the audience. It is also estimated by that 14% of the world’s CO2 emissions are caused by food waste alone. These dire figures encouraged associates to think twice before wasting food, both at home and the hotel. Jaltota lamented that human beings are the only species on earth which generates artificial waste, warning of irretrievable damage in future, if not controlled in the present. Waste impacts the earth’s bio-diversity and causes air and water pollution, which in turn poses dangers to animals, health risks to humans and leads to many social issues.

He further elaborated on the impending crisis with regard to the emanation of carcinogenic gases and contamination of water, which not only endangers animals but more so spells out a doomed future void of fresh air to breath or clean water to drink.

In a statistical breakdown of municipal waste in Sri Lanka, Jaltota pointed out that the majority of waste comes of food, while emphasising the importance of employing the 3R policy of reduce, reuse and recycle, in our day to day.

He further dispensed some valuable tips on managing and monitoring waste, in a corporate and personal context, such as creating sanitary landfills, using compost bins and e-waste recycling as well as little things such as using a lunch box instead of lunch sheets and recycling your shopping bags.

The seminar was beneficial to associates not only as key players in a food oriented hospitality industry but also as human beings who must work together to safeguard the future.