400000 tonnes of lemons were just thrown away in Spain!
"Production Has Got Out of Hand"
I saw this interesting news the other day. Spain is the leader in lemon production in the European Union, but things got out of hand this time. They have to throw away 400000 tonnes of lemons!
There are reasons for overproduction but my aim is different in this short post.
According to COAG, the Spanish Agriculture Union, 400000 tonnes is about 27% of Spain’s yearly lemon production. So we can estimate annual production as 1.5 million tonnes.
Spain’s loss in this waste is estimated to be about 129 million dollars.
400000 tonnes is heavier than the weight of the Empire State Building. The Measure of Things gives an approximation of 365000 tonnes for the weight of the Empire State Building.
An average lemon weighs around 58 grams. [Food Data Central] Then 400000 tonnes of lemons amount to about 6.9 billion lemons.
An average medium-sized lemon is about 5-8 centimeters. If we assume the length of an average lemon as 6.5 centimeters, then 6900000000 x 6.5 = 44850000000 centimeters which is 448500 kilometers!
The equator is about 40000 kilometers. If we could put all these lemons around the Earth side-by-side, they would cover it more than 11 times!
This is mind-boggling. I wonder how much waste occurs in other agricultural produce.