Italy passes law to send unsold food to charities instead of dumpsters

Food & Hunger Italy joins growing list of countries looking to end food-waste Italy is introducing a series of incentives to end food waste. Instead of throwing away leftover food, Italy wants businesses that sell food to donate unsold to charities rather than throw it away. The environmental, economic and moral benefits are so clear that the bill received broad support across all political parties and is speeding through the approval process. The next step will be getting businesses to comply, providing some sort of nudge to change the current model of careless waste. Other countries such as France are nudging businesses in the form of a steep fine . Italy is taking a different approach. Instead of imposing penalties, the country will give garbage collection tax breaks to businesses that take part in the initiative. All food donated by businesses has to be recorded so the tax break will be easy to implement. Currently, the country spends more than $13 billion USD on waste management. Through this latest bill, legislators want to cut down on expenses. Ultimately, they want to recover 1 billion tonnes of excess food in 2016, up from last year’s total of 550 million tonnes. […]

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