Sustainability School

Turning Throwaway Culture into Giveaway Culture - an Interview with Anja Schlott

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In this episode, we’re talking to Anja Schlott, PhD Biochemistry and Molecular Biology / Infectious Diseases, about food waste and an app called Olio, that helps us in reducing ours.


This podcast episode discusses:

  1. Why is food waste a problem for the environment?
  2. What can and should we do about it? One of the solutions is the Olio app.
  3. Anja shares how she has used the app and why it stood out for her as a great solution in reducing food waste.


    4. Food waste is one of the top contributors to climate change. Some facts & figures (ref):

    • Between 33-50% of all food produced globally is never eaten. The value of this wasted food is worth over $1 trillion.
    • Meanwhile 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. That is 1 in 9 people on the planet who are starving or malnourished.
    • Food waste is harmful for the planet:
    • It takes a landmass larger than China to grow the food each year that is ultimately never eaten.
    • 25% of the world’s freshwater supply is used to grow food that is never eaten.
    • If food waste were a country it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China & the USA).


      • Anja is originally from Hamburg, Germany and recently finished at PhD at the Francis Crick Institute in London where she was working on Drug Discovery against the Malaria Parasite. She has been working in the field of sustainability for more than two years helping to build up a sustainability team at the Francis Crick during her PhD and organising with InnerPlanet the London Climathon 2019 and working on a carbon emission tracking technology. She is now starting a new role at Mondra (carbon labelling) to become a Life cycle analysis Consultant to look at a way to enable consumers to choose the most environmentally friendly food product by giving transparent information.


      Anja has a passion for nature and has been working towards her own sustainable lifestyle changes, which she shares on her Instagram. One app has really stood out however in helping to reduce food waste and now also share non-food items with other people.


      Learn more about Olio and download the app here: https://olioex.com


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