In Taiwan, leftover food scraps help farmers sustain porky appetites

Taiwan has institutionalized the practice of feeding leftover food to livestock, an approach that many nations are using or considering to reduce their food waste. Now, two thirds of the country's overall food waste helps feed its 5.5m pigs

Every night, classical music blares from garbage trucks in Taipei, summoning people from their homes. In their hands, they clutch bags or buckets of kitchen scraps, which they dump into a bin on the truck. From there, the food travels to farms, where it helps ensure a good supply of one of Taiwan's food staples.

Farmers have fed leftover food to livestock for centuries, but Taiwan is one of a handful of countries that have institutionalized the practice. About two thirds of the island nation's overall food waste, which totaled 610,000 tons last year, goes to help feed the country's 5.5m pigs - the top meat source for the country's 23.5 million people.