Milan, 5 June 2015 - School children celebrated World Environment Day at the Milan Expo today by making traditional Italian Ravioli using leftover vegetables as stuffing. At hand to help the youngsters were UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Goodwill Ambassador and football star, Yaya Touré and UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
This year, the theme of World Environent Day is 'Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care', It invites everyone, particularly young people, to rethink their consumption habits, including those resulting in food waste, and the impact they are having on the planet.
Worldwide, about one third of all food produced, worth around US $1 trillion, is lost or wasted, despite the fact that 800 million people worldwide still go hungry, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN (FAO).
Chef Marlena of the Slow Food Movement, co-organizers of the event, introduced the children to smart techniques of reducing food waste by making traditional Italian ravioli using vegetable leftovers as stuffing. The primary schoolers participating in the event were able to take their creations home and share them with their families, along with the newly gained knowledge on food waste prevention.
"The future generations are teaching us how to avoid food waste. This is a perfect lunch for World Environment Day - a lunch with leftovers. This is a first step to reducing the immense amount of food we throw away. One third of what we produce never reaches our plates. Here it did!" said Achim Steiner during the event.
Earlier today Achim Steiner and Yaya Touré witnessed a demonstration by the chefs at Bio Mediterranean Pavilion on how to use all the components of food ingredients. They were able to sample marmalade crafted from what would have normally been discarded orange peel.
The host of this year's WED, Expo Milano is amplifying the Day's call for sustainable lifestyles with its theme 'Feeding the Planet - Energy for Life'. It promotes a more responsible use of natural resources, particularly those related to food consumption and production.
In order to reduce the enormous amounts of food wasted each year, UNEP, FAO and partners from public and private sectors launched the Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint initiative in 2013. The campaign draws attention both to the issue and the absurdity of high volumes of perfectly edible produce never making it from the farm to the fork. Think.Eat.Save increases awareness of this contemptible waste and catalyses action to prevent it among all sectors of the society, including through exchange of inspiring ideas and projects.
UN Environment's communications activities on resource efficiency are supported by Hisense.
About WED 2015
World Environment Day (WED) is the United Nations' campaign for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years it has grown to be a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the people's day for doing something positive for the environment, inspiring individual actions and galvanizing them into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet. WED celebrations culminate on 5th June every year. This year's theme 'Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care', encourages people to rethink their lifestyles and, through conscious consumer decisions, decrease humanity's collective impact on nature's resources. The global host of WED this year is Italy and the main celebrations will take place in Milan, at the Expo Milano 2015. More planned activities are available on the WED website - unep.org/wed.
