News Mountains of wasted food at Tokyo Olympics

About 90,000 people worked as volunteers for the Summer Games. Up to 1,207 tons of food ingredients were used to prepare about 870,000 meals for athletes and staff at the Athletes' Village, according to the board's report submitted to the Diet on Dec. 21. The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee signed contracts with operators to provide meals and beverages there and paid 7.1 billion yen ($53.9 million) until fiscal 2021, the board said. To meet requests from the International Olympic Committee, the operators made about 700 kinds of dishes available for each meal at the main dining halls to cater to diverse dietary habits and religious practices. Still, about 175 tons of food untouched by athletes went to waste, the board said. The organizing committee also arranged to have about 1.6 million bento available for volunteers and staff during the Olympics. About 300,000 of them were thrown out. The food-waste problem was particularly noticeable during the Opening Ceremony, when operators discarded 4,000 of the 10,000 meals prepared.

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