Throwing food away isn’t just wasteful – it’s bad for the planet.
When food breaks down in landfill, it releases harmful greenhouse gases like methane into the atmosphere. About 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food waste.
UK households throw away 6.5 million tonnes of food waste every year. 4.5 million tonnes (69%) of that waste was still edible when it was thrown away. This is why it is so important to be food-smart in the kitchen.
The Love Food Hate Waste website is a great resource full of simple ways you can reduce your food waste – and how much money you waste on groceries. Simple tricks can help, like storing food correctly, putting the food in your fridge in height order (shortest things nearest the front) so you can easily see what needs to be eaten, or learning what ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ really mean. There’s even a catalogue of surprisingly tasty waste-free recipes that will help make the most of your weekly grocery shop.
It is estimated that every week, one in five bags of food shopping bought by families in the UK is not eaten. This is a huge amount of wasted money (around £14 billion each year, or £700 per household) that could be saved if we all made just a few changes. To read more about food and other types of household waste, take a look at the Green Living At Home section of this website.
