Food Waste

With over 4.5 million tonnes of edible food wasted from UK homes every year, it’s not just our bank accounts that are affected by food waste – it’s our planet too. Food production is big business - the process of growing, making, distributing, storing and cooking our food uses loads of energy, fuel and water and this process generates 30% of the world’s CO₂ greenhouse gas levels. With 90% of the UK’s fruit and 50% of vegetables coming from overseas, distribution alone means your green beans could have travelled all the way from Kenya, and your grapes from Greece or Egypt! And the huge amount of resources that goes into the production of all this food amounts to the same amount of CO₂ as 4.6 million return flights from London to Perth! So really, it’s a no-brainer to keep as much food out of the bin as possible, and to start wasting less and saving more – both money and the planet.

Not necessarily for vegetarians, there are some brilliant ideas on this video.  (Gherkin juice can cure a hangover!)

Wasting food is bad for the environment - including the climate. We waste about a third of all food  produced for human consumption. This wasted food has taken loads of fresh water, land and labour to produce. If it were a country, food waste would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. But we keep throwing perfectly good food away. Over 10 million tonnes of food are binned each year in the UK.