WITH millions of people flying around the world every day, the amount of waste generated after each journey is not small, to put it mildly. The International Air Transport Association estimates that the world's airlines collectively produced some 5.7 million tonnes of waste in 2017, a nearly 10 per cent increase from 5.2 million tonnes the previous year. This figure is expected to rise to more than 10 million tonnes by 2030.

A sizeable chunk of that amount is partially eaten food and even completely untouched meals. Due to strict health and safety regulations in many countries, most of it presumably gets incinerated or dumped in landfills, with neither method doing any good for the environment whatsoever.

It's not easy by any means to recycle food, especially airline fare, so a big pat on the back has to go to Sats - the chief in-flight catering service provider for Changi Airport and one of the big names in Singapore's food industry - when it announced last week its ongoing efforts to extend the shelf life of cooked airplane food and, in the process, reduce wastage on a significant scale.