Ethical Review of Hospitals Contributing to Food Waste

Abstract

About a third of the food produced per year is thrown away and becomes food waste, affecting various fields on a global scale. According to Williams and Walton, food waste generated by hospitals is two to three times greater than in other service areas. If this food waste is processed and recycled, it will produce methane and CO2 emissions which will also worsen global warming. The purpose is to review the ethics of hospitals that contribute to food waste. This is a literature study that was carried out using the Pubmed and Google Scholar databases from 2014-2024 with the main keywords "food waste", "hospital", and "ethic", and obtained 17 journals in Indonesian and English. The results showed that vegetables were often the type of food left most in hospitals. Strategies to reduce food waste include attractive presentation, room service systems, and bioconversion innovations with BSF larvae. Indonesia itself has several policies to reduce food waste, but more focused management is still needed. It can be concluded that the main strategies for reducing food waste include improving food presentation, flexible services such as room service, bioconversion with BSF larvae, and recycling. More specific regulations for hospitals are needed in Indonesia