Fish wars

As predicted, when the catch gets low, anger rises, the sense of injustice grows, the irritation at fellow fisherman increases:

Norwegian government coastguards filmed the crew of the Prolific, a Shetland-based trawler, openly discarding more than 5,000 kg of cod and other dead white fish, or nearly 80% of its catch.

According to the coastguard, the boat had previously been inspected in Norwegian waters and declared legal, before crossing into UK waters where it dumped its load. The incident took place on 2 August but the video only came to light in Britain yesterday.

It is illegal to discard fish in Norwegian waters, but boats are forced to do so in European Union waters if they have caught the wrong species of fish or fish that are too small. Last year the EU estimated that between 40% and 60% of all fish caught by trawlers in the North sea is discarded. The practice of dumping is widely recognised as unsustainable but inevitable given the present EU quota system.

Yesterday, Norwegian minister for fisheries and coastal affairs Helga Pedersen, speaking to angry fishing communities in northern Norway who had seen the film, said she would press for review of the EU fishing policy and wanted to ban any boat discarding fish that were caught in Norwegian waters.

Check the link to see the video of what five tons of fish looks like. What a waste.

Love Food Hate Waste campaign

Kicks off in Britain. What if we activated something like that over here? What if we actually learned how to eat properly, ate more healthily, and didn't buy more than we needed? Our nation-wide obesity problem would disappear, vegetable consumption would rise, meat production would fall, diabetes cases would drop, our landfills would not fill as fast.

Sounds good? As Americans we are told to consume, faster, more. And remember, whenever an addict is cured, someone loses money. Imagine the food corporate writhings and whinings that would go on as we ceased to eat crap. How many businesses would see their income drop? Could we ever say to ourselves: eat less, want less, buy less. Use up, wear out, recycle?

LONDON - New research has revealed that Britons waste a whooping 6.7 million tons of unused fresh fruit, vegetables and baked items annually. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimated that the cost of these food items touches at least £8 billion per year.

Therefore a new campaign called 'Love Food Hate Waste' has been launched in the country with an aim of increasing awareness among consumers. The organizers estimated that almost one third of all food purchased in Britain's High Street ends up being wasted.

Food that is thrown away often ends in landfills, where it decays and released gases like methane, which are classified greenhouse gases. The WRAP claims that when energy expended to pack and transport the food is taken into account, almost 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere.

"Our research showed that 90 per cent of consumers are completely unaware of the amount of food they throw away. Once attention is drawn to it however, we know that people are surprised and keen to take action," said Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP. "If we could halt the amount of food being wasted in this way, we would make a big impact – the same as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads."