Immigration in UK
STRANIERIINITALIA.IT| Wasting food and plastics on airlines |
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By Ruggero Da Ros
24th September 2009: Vacations are over. Many of us have been travelling by air to distant places. Have you ever noticed how much food is wasted? On the flights that are not low cost and that last more than an hour, a meal and a snack are served on trays in various plastic containers wrapped with plastic film. Nearly nobody refuses them.  Some might not be hungry or have no intention to eat them, nonetheless they accept them hoping to find something to their taste or because it is included in the ticket fare. A lot of people open the wrapping, smell the food or taste just a little bit of it, others eat something, only a few of them eat everything. On long distance flights almost two complete meals are served, one just after taking off and the other before landing. Is all this food really necessary? In the low cost flights the food is paid apart from the travel fare and few people buy it, yet these companies are successful. We might then wonder why the other airline companies don't give the opportunity to choose between a fare with meals and one without, and with a lower price? Doing so the exaggerated use of plastic containers and wrapping would be reduced, the cost of the airline tickets would also be reduced and, above all, the waste of enormous quantities of food would thus be avoided. Let's consider two calculations. On an intercontinental flight with 300 people 600 meals are served and, if they were to be paid, one can consider that at least 400 meals and 80 kg of plastic would be saved. In Europe only, around 800 million passengers fly every year; supposing that only one meal every 10 travellers could be saved, it would sum up to the enormous figure of 80 million wasted meals. This would be enough to feed over 200.000 inhabitants of the poorer countries for a year and this figure would become millions if we extended this calculation to the whole world. Considering that the aeroplane remains the most polluting transport means, indeed a trip between Europe and America of two people contributes, as far as gas and electricity consumption is concerned, to the same consumption as an average family in one whole year, thus let's avoid wasting if we really cannot avoid flying.
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