UAE: 1 person wastes 95kg food a year on average

Dubai - Dubai has vowed to cut its food waste in half by the year 2030.

By Waheed Abbas

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Published: Sat 13 Mar 2021, 3:17 PM

A new UN report finds that the average person in the UAE waste about 95 kilograms a year, with the total average household food waste coming up to 923,675 tonnes a year.

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According to the Food Waste Index Report 2020, these numbers are considerably low compared to other countries in the region. However, this still adds up to around Dh13 billion wasted every year, and the UAE has vowed to cut the amount in half by the year 2030.


Food waste in Bahrain averages 132kg per person, 120kg in Iraq, 105kg in Saudi Arabia, 104kg in Syria, 104kg in Yemen and 100kg in Israel. Kuwait, Oman and Qatar are at par with the UAE at 95kg average food waste in 2020

Average yearly household food waste is estimated 3.59 million tonnes in Saudi Arabia, 848,395 tonnes in Israel, 397,727 tonnes in Kuwait, 267739 tonnes in Qatar, 470,322 tonnes in Oman and 216,161 in Bahrain.

“What is notable across the Middle East region as a whole is the convergence of household food waste estimates: in Israel, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, values around 105 kg/capita/year were observed. More transparent, robust measurement is needed, but the preliminary picture is of substantial household food waste in the region, similar to levels in Western Europe and North America,” said the UN’s report.

The UN estimates that 17 per cent of the food produced globally is wasted every year, which amounts to 1.03 billion tonnes of food.

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Photo: AFP
Photo: AFP

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