France Bans Food Waste, To Give Food To Charities and Food Banks

The French senate unanimously passed a law on Wednesday that stops grocery stores from throwing away and intentionally spoiling food that approaches best-buy dates.

Instead, they’ll have to give all of this food to charities and food banks, which will provide the hungry with millions of more meals. Just a 15% increase in donated food will mean 10 million more meals per year.

A recent spike in France’s unemployed and homeless populations has caused more families to forage for food. To stop people from going through store dumpsters, some managers have resorted to pouring bleach over everything or using locks to make the food impossible to get.

The law will put an end to this cruel behavior by imposing contracts on super markets that, if violated, will lead to hefty fines and even prison sentences. Worldwide, too much food is thrown away and it should rightly be viewed as a crime.