India generates 68,760,163 metric tonnes of household food waste per year
This is as much as 50 kgs of food wasted per year for a population of over 1.6 billion.
Organic Waste causes significant emissions, especially of more potent gases than CO2.
While India's per capita wastage is the lowest among South Asian countries, the volumes of loss are large, especially considering as many as 27 percent of Indians went to bed hungry sometimes, according to a survey conducted in October 2020 by Hunger Watch. Higher income groups tend to waste more, as per observations in the UN report.
Effective waste management is expensive, often comprising 20 per cent to 50 per cent of municipal budgets.