As the sun sets over Copenhagen, Matt Homewood switches on his headlamp and prepares to climb into another bin.

A few minutes later he resurfaces with a dozen Uruguayan steaks, grown 11,980km away across the Atlantic and dumped in an alley. 

Every year, Denmark's supermarkets throw away 96 million kilograms of food. Homewood has made it his mission to document the waste. 

One night, he finds a shipment of Chilean blueberries. Another, 153kg of dairy cream. In August, he discovered an astonishing $1,130 (£840) of cheese.

"Waste on this scale is near-unfathomable," says Homewood. Most of the food is still edible. Meanwhile, 251,000 Danes live in poverty.

At least 2.5 trillion kilograms of food goes uneaten every year. Rich countries are the worst offenders. 

One in every eleven people is suffering from severe food insecurityPeople suffering from severe food insecurity lack sufficient food to grow, develop and lead a healthy life. . The pandemic has exacerbated the issue: during lockdown, 1.5 million Britons went days without eating. 

This is not just a humanitarian disaster, but a climate disaster. If food waste was a country, it would be the third highest greenhouse gasGases in the Earth's atmosphere that trap heat, contributing to global warming. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapour are all greenhouse gases. emitter. Valuable farmlandAgriculture now uses nearly half of the ice-free land on Earth, threatening many animal species with habitat loss and extinction. Cutting down on waste could cut down on the land needed to grow food.  and polluting pesticides are used to grow food that never reaches a table. 

So why do supermarkets throw so much away? 

There is no doubt: supermarkets have provided shoppers with choice, convenience and cheaper prices. But the tactics used to lure customers can lead to huge waste.

One American study found shops overstock products under the assumption that people are more likely to buy from a fully stocked display.

Some foods fall victim to cautious labelling - one yoghurt manufacturer proved their yoghurts were edible 45 days after the use-by date.

And other foods never make it onto the shelves. In France, potatoes less than 25mm and more than 70mm are rejected.  

As Cop26Cop stands for  Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change got underway, five UK supermarkets promised to halve the environmental impact of a weekly food shop by 2030.

But campaigners want the law to change. In France, supermarkets can be fined for refusing to give away unsold food.

Homewood is calling for a tax on food waste. In Denmark, food banks recover only 1.8% of dumped foods. 

Homewood believes a tax would compel supermarkets to invest in new technologies that could streamline their operations, from an AI pricing systemA pilot of an Artificial Intelligence pricing system that reduces the price of a product as it gets closer to its use-by date reduced overall waste by a third at a Spanish supermarket.  to plant-based packaging. Until then, he will keep reaching into the bins. 

Yes. It is extraordinary that shops are allowed to throw away so much food while millions go hungry. We cannot wait for supermarkets to make changes on their own. A tax would force companies to reconsider their ways. 

No. Taxes would not solve the supply chain problem. It would encourage supermarkets to raise prices on other goods. This would harm the people the tax is trying to help - those in poverty. And the blame cannot be on supermarkets alone. Plenty of food is thrown away in homes too.