| Abstract |
The quantification of food waste is a significant challenge of the environmental community, which advocates both in the context of good circular economy practices, and more broadly, in the context of efficient management of resources policies. The European Commission has already adopted a regulation on the principles and meth-odologies to be followed in cases of food waste quantification, a regulation that all its Member States are obliged to implement. The purpose of this study is to indicate specific aspects of the application of this Directive in an isolated island Member State of the European Union, the Republic of Cyprus, as well as to present and discuss the specific findings of this analysis. The main research question that this paper attempts to answer concerns the peculiarities that arise in the case of food waste generated in isolated island states, considering additional special conditions. The working methodology is based on integrated mass balances, covering all stages of food waste generation, from the primary sector and processing to the retail sector, food services (i.e. restaurants), and households, using the mass balance method, which is considered to be a good practice in accordance to the relevant EU regulation. This work seeks to provide food for thought for the review of future policies in the sector, especially in terms of islands, isolated states, or even countries with large tourist flows. |
