The Italian government has adopted a new law which will both drastically cut food waste and help the country's most vulnerable. The new measures aim to cut at least one million tonnes of food waste from the current five million tonnes the country produces yearly, the BBC reported.
Most importantly, it is based on the principle of rewarding good behaviours among citizens and businesses instead of punishing bad ones.
The moves will see Italian businesses given incentives to give away unsold food, with the amount of waste tax owed reduced the more a business donates.
As The Independent reported, penalties for giving away food past its best before date have been removed, too.
That's expected to benefit the countless people in Italy struggling to put food on the table.
The provision was hailed by food charities.
"With the new law, we now aim at doubling the tonnes of food we gather and distribute (to other charities assisting poor)," Marco Lucchini, director-general of Italian Food Bank Network foundation, told local media.
"We expect to reach one million tonnes in a few years, from some 500,000 tonnes we collect on average now," he said.
The package removed some bureaucratic hurdles concerning the laws that supermarkets, shops, and farmers had to follow in order to donate food to charity.
Finally, the new law encouraged the practice of the so-called "doggy bag", which allows diners to take home food they have not finished in restaurants.
The practice has never been common among families dining out in Italy. Yet, a pilot project called "The Family bag" promoting this habit was launched by Italy's Ministry of Environment in Feb. 2016 in the northeast province of Padua, and would be extended nationwide.
