Revue de presse.
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
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 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.
“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.
- AFP International
- Metro (Angleterre) ("Arash Derambarsh - Man behind French ban on throwingout waste wants the world to follow suit")
FRANSMAN LOBBYT VOOR EUROPEES SUPERMARKTVERBOD OPVERKWISTING VOEDSEL
- Luxemburger Wort (Luxembourg) : "Gaspillage alimentaire, Arash Derambarsh en appelle à Jean-Claude Juncker"
- The Independent (UK) : "Supermarket foodwaste 'must be banned by EU and US', demands French politician Arash Derambarsh"
- The Guardian (UK) "French law forbids food waste by supermakets"
- Luxemburger Wort (Luxembourg) : "Gaspillage alimentaire, Arash Derambarsh en appelle à Jean-Claude Juncker"
- The Independent (UK) : "Supermarket foodwaste 'must be banned by EU and US', demands French politician Arash Derambarsh"
- The Guardian (UK) "French law forbids food waste by supermakets"
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| La République Tchèque |
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| La Grèce |
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I24 News (ISRAEL) Grand Dossier: le gâchis alimentaire: ça suffit... par i24news-fr
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AJ+ (Al Jazeera Media Network) - Arash Derambarsh Food Waste
