engleski

Food waste management in a sample of Croatian high school dormitories

With the gradual development of society, from agrarian to industrial, the evolution of technology set in, and with it the ever increasing reliance on natural resources. The world’s population keeps growing and natural resources cannot replenish at the same rate at which they are exploited. Over seven billion people inhabit the planet and all, regardless of where they live, use natural resources to fulfill their needs. In doing so, they generate large quantities of waste. A vital component of a well-rounded system of waste management are efforts to reduce the amount of waste originating from food. Man continuously produces food waste, both at home and at the workplace or school and even on the way to work or school. It results practically from all fields of human activity. This study focuses on a target group determined through preliminary research to generate significant amounts of food waste. A questionnaire was used to analyse the habits and attitudes of high school dormitories on food waste and its proper management. It was applied to a sample of nine high school dormitories located in Croatia. Based on the obtained results, we have concluded that the dormitories that have responded to the questionnaire understand the issue of excessive food waste and that they strive to reduce their amounts of food waste as much as possible through education and measures proposed by the HACCP system. The largest limitation of this study was the fact that only 9 of the 58 dormitories to which the questionnaires was sent were returned. This clearly points to the fact that most of the studied dormitories do not realise the importance of reducing waste, sorting waste, and educating their staff and pupils on proper management.

eco-awareness ; education ; HACCP system ; questionnaire

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