Almost one-third of the food produced worldwide for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tons - goes uneaten or is wasted.
To prevent widespread food waste locally, Samsun Metropolitan Municipality has initiated a project to use the leftovers as cat and dog food. The facility the municipality opened turns the leftover food into canned cat and dog food, which is distributed to the strays in the streets of Samsun. The leftovers from hospitals, military facilities, government offices, factories and other large establishments are collected by the municipality and brought to the new facility to be turned into cat and dog food, and then are canned.
The food is first served to strays living in municipality's shelters and then to other strays in the city.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Mayor Zihni Şahin said the animal shelter in Samsun is the biggest shelter in Turkey. "The cat and dog food facility is inside the animal shelter compound. Instead of throwing all this food in the trash, we turn it into food for our four-legged friends. We also store some of the food to be used in the future. No stray in Samsun will ever go hungry again," Şahin added.
