Why? Because food waste is one of the key contributors to global warming and it’s one we can easily control

SHOCK FACT
:

**70 percent of the food we throw away in the UK comes from our homes.**

Industrial agriculture, which sadly is still where most of our food comes from, is for many reasons, a massive carbon emitter. And apart from the wasting of food itself, it takes tremendous energy to produce it - think processing, packaging, transport, refrigeration the list goes on. So by wasting food we directly contribute to colossal amounts of CO2 pumping into the atmosphere, that just need not have. That’s not counting the water wastage and human effort or food inequality in the world!

The food and drink we waste, that could have been eaten in a year, would fill 9 Wembley Stadiums, 100 Royal Albert Halls, 4,000 Olympic sized swimming pools, 40 million wheelie bins and 540,000 bin lorries. Yup.

Ok got it. So how do I take action?

The first step is to know where you’re at right now. So this week make a note (or take a picture) of the food you are throwing away. What’s the stuff you’re noticing tends to get left over? Adjust your shopping next week to bring that close to zero. Rinse and repeat until you are regularly buying just what you need.

But will it cost me more money?

Nope. Unless you’ve got to zero-waste already (whoop!) you’ll save some.

We noticed …

…we had repeat offenders like bread (Aim) and salad leaves (Sonia). We’ve started freezing the bread and buying one salad bag at a time so they last a bit longer or make a great soup. Then we felt pleased and a bit proud.

“Grow and you’ll never throw ”