Avoiding food waste

[Angela]

It's a less known fact that wasting food is bad for the environment, particularly the climate. Food waste that ends up in landfills produces a large amount of methane – a more powerful greenhouse gas than even CO2. This methane contributes towards the excess amounts of greenhouse gases which traps heat in the atmosphere to increase the devastating impacts of  change.

According to OLIO, we waste about a third of all food  produced for human consumption. Food requires incredible amounts of fresh water, land and labour to produce, so when it is wasted - what was it all for? If it were a country, food waste would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world (Friends of the Earth, 2021). 

Crazy facts about food waste from FoE that you should know

• 50 million chickens  are wasted in the UK each year
• 240,000 tonnes of food is wasted by UK supermarkets  every year 
• One third of all food produced across the globe is lost or wasted 
• 100 million pints of milk  are tipped down the drain each year in the UK

At Climax Community, we're passionate about empowering individuals, households, and businesses to make positive changes and take action in pursuit of a more sustainable world. With that said, we've given you some top tips on how to minimise your food waste so you can be proactive in helping minimise greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, but also wasting less and being confident to share what you have learnt with others!

Top tips to minimise food waste

1. Plan your meals and plan your food shops - if you know what you'll use and need, you're less likely to have surplus food
2. Use the skins of your vegetables and fruits e.g. carrots, potatoes, courgettes, apples, parsnips - they're full of nutrients too!  
3. Instead of throwing away your leftover food, use a compost bin or make one yourself - find out how here 
4. Don't throw away your leftovers, get creative, or look up some different recipes to use them up 
5. There's lots of new incredible apps that discourage food waste, such as OLIO, Too Good To Go, No Waste, Karma and Food Cloud

 

If you have more tips, we'd love to hear them! Minimising food waste is a small thing we can all change to make a large impact, let's start now. 

The UK Food Waste stats you NEED to know