Getliņi Is Almost Full: The Best Food Waste Is the Waste We Never Make

You may have seen the banners already: "Getliņi drīz būs pilni", meaning "Getliņi will soon be full." The Getliņi landfill near Riga takes in waste from Riga and the towns around it, and a new information campaign at citsvariants.lv says a new landfill would be the worst option.

We are not part of this campaign, but its topic is close to ours. Much of what ends up in a landfill is food.

Why Food in a Landfill Is a Problem

The campaign gives four reasons why landfills are bad for the climate, the environment and future generations:

• Climate: biowaste rotting in a landfill releases methane. According to the campaign, methane warms the climate about 28 times more than CO₂.
• Environment: landfills produce wastewater polluted with chemicals and heavy metals, and that water has to be treated.
• Resources: valuable material is buried instead of used.
• Future: even after a landfill closes, it has to be monitored and maintained for decades, and future generations pay for that.

Food makes up a big part of that biowaste. A bun, a salad or a pot of soup that nobody eats does not just disappear. In a landfill it slowly turns into greenhouse gas.

What Comes After Getliņi?

The campaign compares alternatives to burying waste: energy recovery (incineration), biogas from separately collected biowaste, gasification and pyrolysis. Each one has its pros and cons, and the campaign itself says its comparison is for information only, not a recommendation. That decision belongs to experts and to the people of Riga.

All of these options deal with waste after it exists. There is one step that comes before all of them.

The Cheapest Waste Is the Waste You Never Make

The European waste hierarchy puts prevention first, before reuse, recycling and energy recovery. For food, prevention is simple: eat it while it is still good.

That is why Foodhero exists. Every evening, cafés, bakeries, restaurants and shops in Latvia have good food left over. Instead of throwing it away, they pack it into Surprise Bags and sell it for less through the app. You pick it up, you eat it, and it never reaches a bin, a biogas plant or Getliņi.

What You Can Do Today

1. Rescue a Surprise Bag. Open Foodhero, find a bag near you and pick it up in the evening.
2. Plan your shopping. Buy what you will really eat this week. See our tips for reducing food waste at home.
3. Sort what is left. Peels and scraps belong in the biowaste (BIO) container, not in mixed waste. That way they can become biogas and compost instead of methane in a landfill.
4. Run a food business? Become a Foodhero partner and sell your surplus instead of paying to throw it away.

Getliņi filling up is a reminder that "throwing away" always means somewhere. The less food we waste, the less we need to bury, burn or process.