Muscat: A major initiative to reduce food waste has been kickstarted in Muscat Governorate in the wake of the reports of huge food quantities being wasted every day especially after iftar and suhoor gatherings in the Muscat Governorate.
Titled ‘Take What You Need’, this multilingual awareness campaign aims at raising awareness about the importance of preserving food and reducing food waste. The campaign seeks to address the problem of throwing away excess food by encouraging everyone to buy or prepare the moderate amount they need and limit the excess food being thrown into landfills.
“The ‘Take What You Need’ campaign comes as a response to the problem of food waste in the country, especially during the holy month of Ramadhan. As we have observed, large quantities of food, which are difficult to accurately quantify, continue to end up in the municipality trash or landfills,” said the Muscat Municipality spokesperson.
According to him, this food waste gets rotten over a period of time, releasing odours that disturb nearby residents and attract insects and mosquitoes. It also creates additional stress and exhaustion for sanitation workers, increasing the need to intensify and redouble their efforts in removing garbage and treating the resulting pollution.
The initiative highlights several key messages that everyone should consider when consuming food, such as thanking God for His blessings, appreciating them, and helping those in need instead of showing off, following an extravagant lifestyle, and waste. Through these initiatives, Muscat Governorate hopes to instill values of responsibility within society and raise awareness of the importance of appreciating blessings.
The core messages upon which the campaign is based on are
1. Gratitude to Allah: Food is a blessing from Allah, and wasting it shows a lack of appreciation
2. Helping the Needy: Share uneaten food with those in need instead of discarding it
3. Exhaustion of Cleaning Efforts: Food waste puts additional strain on the cleaning staff, beyond the usual
4. Barakah (Blessings) in Sustenance: Respecting food brings blessings, while wastefulness can lead to loss of provision, and
5. Economic Wisdom: Avoiding food waste saves money and helps manage resources wisely.
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