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When a butterfly flaps its wings, according to chaos theory, it can alter the path of a tornado. If small things have such huge consequences, then that half-eaten bit of toast you just chucked in the bin, where it’s lodging between a yoghurt past its sell-by date and the remains of last night’s Chinese takeaway, is going to make a huge difference to the lives of people on the other side of the world.

Those of us of a certain age will remember the constant mantra of our parents who lived through the Second World War: don’t waste anything. Children in Africa would have been glad of that, they’d say. Then there was the comedians’ backlash against that idea, as if we should parcel up our leftover crusts and post them to Africa.

But the link between wasting food here and what happens across the world is gaining credence again. An astonishing 6.7 tonnes of food are wasted in this country alone each year – a third of the food we buy. Food waste was the theme of United Nations World Environment Day on Wednesday. Wasted food means wasted crops, wasted fertilisers, and above all wasted water – a squandering of resources that the world can’t afford. Pope Francis joined in on Wednesday, calling the West’s wasting of food despicable. It’s as if, he said, that the food we throw out is food we stole from the poor and the hungry...