Town to get first community fridge

WESTON-SUPER-MARE is to get its first community fridge – to share surplus food and stop it going to landfill.

The fridge will be based in the Sovereign Centre and will be available for everyone to use.

The initiative has been brought to fruition by Weston Town Council’s climate change working group and community resilience team.

It is being supported by WsM Helping People, the For All Healthy Living Centre, The Sovereign Centre, First Step Housing and North Somerset Council.

A number of food suppliers and retailers have also come forward to support the scheme including Fair Share and Co-op who have surplus supplies of food which would otherwise be thrown away.

The average community fridge redistributes around 500 kg of food per month, which equates to about 2.1 tonnes of carbon dioxideequivalent emissions.

The busiest fridges see around four tonnes of food passing through each month which equates to a saving of almost 17 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions.

Over a year an average fridge will have avoided over 25 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – meaning that across the UK network of community fridges an estimated total of 1,625 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions are avoided.

Food waste is generally overlooked as a big environmental issue yet it is responsible for eight to 10 per cent of the total humancaused greenhouse gas emissions globally.

A Weston Town Council spokesperson said: “By making this food available to everyone we play our part to stop this waste. And if you’ve had a tough week on your purse strings, it also lightens the load.”