Love food, hate waste ?

As part of briefing myself for my new role as OC Waste at Suffolk County Council I took myself on a course this week to learn about how to reduce food waste.

It is a shocking fact that 32% of what is thrown away in Suffolk is food that we find, for one reason or another, surplus to requirements.  This amounts to a massive 43,691 tonnes.  Setting aside the very real environmental issues, wasting food is an expensive business, both for our residents and for the council that has the responsibility for its disposal.

It has been estimated that money spent on binned food costs each family up to £700 per annum.   It also costs the council a great deal of money every year to dispose of the rubbish that results since it cannot be recycled and must go into landfill. In these cash strapped times this is a serious consideration.  I do not have a number for Suffolk (at present), but it costs the London Boroughs some £50 million a year to dispose of their food waste.

 

 The course was very instructive and entertaining.  It was run under the auspices of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, backed by the Government, which has all sorts of on line resources to encourage the reduction of food waste on its website here

The five key messages we learned on the course are

• Plan ahead
• Understand date marks and food labels
• Store food sensibly (especially in the freezer)
• Don’t over cater  (this has health benefits too!)
• Use your leftovers!

‘All common sense’  I hear you say….but it is amazing how many of us are failing to use our heads in the kitchen, and wasting good money in the process.