Time and again we&rsquove been reminded to take smaller servings of food and finish what&rsquos on our plate. The lesson of not wasting food has been constant from our parents and grandparents.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), roughly one-third of the world&rsquos food is wasted every year. This is enough to feed 2 billion people. If wasted food was a country, it would be the third-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world. 

In an attempt to reduce food wastage, The Ibnii Spa Resort in Coorg, Karnataka, will now charge its guests for food wastage. At the property, the food wasted by guests is weighed and billed at Rs 100 per 10gm. The proceeds from this initiative go to a not-for-profit organisation that feeds children at an orphanage in Madikere.

According to media reports, the number of waste bins have come down from 14 to 1, clearly indicating a drastic decrease in the quantity of wasted food.

At the end of every meal, the leftover food is weighed on a scale in front of the guest and the sum of the food wasted is presented to the guests at the time of checkout. The guests then have to pay Rs 100 for every 10gms of food they waste. The payout is directly dropped into a donation box, added the reports.

This is an excellent initiative. Alarming data from the UNFAO reveals that the total volume of water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted (250km3) is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva. The direct economic consequences of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually.