ATHENS – Biding their time and trying to survive during 20 weeks of two lockdowns, Greeks are saving more money but also tempted so much by specials on food products in supermarkets that most overbuy and toss away what they don’t eat.

Research by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki showed 72 percent of consumers are extravagant in purchasing more than they need, said Kathimerini, with 48.9 percent of fruit and 38.7 percent of spoiled vegetables tossed.

Some 40.9 percent of milk and yogurt also aren’t consumed before the expiration date and 35 percent of bread and meat and 31.8 percent of fish wind up in the garbage bin instead of being eaten, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The young are the most wasteful, the findings concluded but no word on any recommendations to prevent the practice that’s ongoing two years after the technical end of a near decade-long economic and austerity crisis so devastating that people were scrounging for food in dumpsters.