Love Food, Hate Waste
What is love food hate waste...?
The Love Food Hate Waste initiative raises awareness of the need to reduce food waste in the UK. By doing some easy everyday things in the home we can all waste less food, which will save us money and benefit the environment too.
Our food waste is a big issue and not just because good food going to waste. Wasting food could cost your family £470 (£700 if you have children) a year and cause environmental problems too. Reduce the amount of food you throw away and you could save up to £60 a month, you can use this to buy something else.
There are 5 things about food that can help you start saving now:
- Planning - what will you be eating, when will you be eating it and how much do you need?
- Storage - Where is the best place to store your food to get the most out of it?
- Portions - How much should you cook?
- Dates - When does your food need eating by?
- Leftovers - If you cook too much what can you do with it?
How much food do we throw away?
Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten
What types of food are thrown away?
The top 5 most wasted foods are fruit & veg, salad, drinks and bakery items such as bread and cakes.
Most of the things we can’t eat like banana peel, apple cores, bones and eggshells can be recycled using a home compost bin or the kerbside green bin - see the compost bin and green bin pages for more information.
Why does cutting food waste matter?
- Most of us already think that throwing food away is a waste, but do we know exactly what impact it has?
- Wastes natural resources - energy, water and packaging used in the making, moving and storing of food all goes to waste if we never eat the food.
- Food that ends up in landfill rots and creates Methane gas. Methane is 4 times more harmful than Carbon Dioxide when it comes to climate change.
- If we stop throwing food away it would have the same benefits as taking 1 in 4 cars off the road in the UK!
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