A LITRE of milk, a packet of kaffir lime leaves, 2-3 dried lemons, a mango and some brinjals.” That is what Radhika, a journalist who lives on her own in New Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, threw away on a Monday. The previous day, it was some curry gone bad, a slab of paneer and half a small loaf of bread.
“The milk I forgot to put back in the fridge last night. The lime leaves were for a Thai curry, but I didn’t know what to do with the rest. The lemons and brinjals were at the bottom of the vegetable tray in the fridge and going off.” If one were to go through her kitchen cupboards, she admits, one would find at least a kilo worth of assorted flours gone bad, a bottle of suspect olive oil and such.
The dhalao (garbage dump) in her neighbourhood shows this kind of wastage is perhaps at the lower end of the scale. Amid the mountain of plastic — covers of giant packs of noodles, snacks, family- size atta packets, ice cream tubs — are kilos of rotting, rotten vegetables, fruits, peels, half a melon, a pineapple, chapatis…
The average urban household in India wastes 100 kg of food per person even as millions go to bed hungry. A big part of the wastage is to be blamed on modern lifestyles and the almost unnoticeable tendency to hoard. “Yes, I perhaps tend to put in a little extra while shopping at the local Safal outlet, accounting for the rare guest and maybe also wastage,” the journalist owns up.