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NEWS ITEM
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WRAP report shows over 6 million tonnes of food is landfilled each year
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Throwaway society
No-one likes to throw money down the drain but it seems many of us are happy to put it in our rubbish bins.
A new report says that households dump more than six million tonnes of food each year. About half of this is waste and the other half simply uneaten.
According to the survey by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), some of the reasons we bin food are because we buy too much in the first place, not eating short shelf life items before their use by date, children who are fussy eaters and fridges being kept too warm so that items go off quicker.
Of course, not every scrap of cooked food is going to be eaten. However, dumping 6.7m tonnes of food waste takes up a lot of landfill and p roduces a significant amount of greenhouse gas. Around 20 per cent of climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food.
If you want to claw back some of those wasted pennies then think carefully about the food you are buying. Are the amounts right? Is it being bought on a whim? Are you going to be scraping it off the back of the fridge in two months time?
And it’s not just the food itself which has to be binned. The packaging that goes with it also has to be dealt with.
Many of us, it seems, are in something of a state of denial when it comes to food waste. When Wrap asked 1,800 people about their attitudes to waste just ten per cent believed they threw away a substantial amount of food.
So dig out the cookery books and see what you can do with your left overs and make your meals go further.
According to WRAP’s research cooked food is more likely to be thrown away than raw ingredients, and fresh fruit and vegetables are the most common uncooked food to be discarded followed by bread and cakes.
However vegetable peelings and fruit, along with many other items, can be put in a home composter.
You can get a subsidised home compost bin through the WRAP and Recyclenow compost bin offer - just visit www.recyclenow.com/compost
Ends
For more information please contact the press office on 01225 713114.
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