Waste not, want not... save food and planet

FOOD unites us all. It is fuel for life yet can also be a comforting treat. It brings families and friends together around the table. we love to cook and to share. we love to try new foods and experiment with flavours, to visit new restaurants and bake, braise and barbecue at home. But while we love to eat, food waste is a major problem for the planet.

Scottish households throw away nearly 600,000 tonnes of food waste a year – but more than 60 per cent of this is preventable. As well as costing Scotland more than £1billion every year, when we waste food we are also wasting all of the energy and water that goes into its growth, picking, transport and packaging. If it goes to landfill, it rots and produces the greenhouse gas methane, contributing to climate change.

An easy way we can all help reverse this harm is to change the way we bin and buy food. So this week, in partnership with Zero waste Scotland, we will be sharing handy hints on how to reduce your food waste, plus delicious recipes for transforming leftovers into mouthwatering meals.

Today, in the first of our four special supplements, we outline why and how you should reduce waste, plus share some ideas for being crafty with common leftovers.

Thank you for taking these small steps to help our planet – and enjoy those recipes.

Why is food waste a problem in Scotland?

METHANE: SCRAPING leftover pasta, fish or salad from your plate into the bin causes serious harm to the planet.

When those scraps end up in landfill they rot, and as they break down they emit methane, which is much more harmful in the short-term to our climate than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential many times that of carbon dioxide. This means a tonne of methane will cause the same amount of global warming as many tonnes of CO2.

So cutting methane emissions can play a huge part in the war on climate change – and saving food plays an important part in this.

If you compost peelings, eggshells and apple cores to enrich your garden – and eat everything else that can be eaten – then that is a great start.

But much of our food waste does not end up that way. In the UK, we discard almost a million tonnes of milk, bread and potatoes every year – that is nearly a billion kilograms.

Most of this goes straight down the sink or to your local landfill, which are slowly filling up with rotting food – and this waste can take many years to degrade completely.

MORE THAN PLASTIC: ONE of the main reasons food waste has such a huge impact on global warming is that there can be much more of it.

The amount of food waste collected from Scottish households in 2016 was roughly double the amount of plastic waste collected. Zero Waste Scotland figures show a total of 456,000 tonnes of food waste was collected that year against 224,000 tonnes of plastic waste.

THE CARBON FOOTPRINT: KEEPING everyone in Scotland fed is a complex and costly process.

The chances are that the green beans on your plate are from Kenya, while your grapes have been flown here from Greece or Egypt. The whole process of growing, harvesting, making, distributing, storing and cooking our food uses up a lot of energy, fuel and water.

But all of this is for nothing if the food ends up in your bin.

In total, nearly a million tonnes of food and drink gets wasted every year in Scotland. The bulk of this (600,000 tonnes) is from households and consumers, and most of it ends up in landfill.

Of this 600,000 tonnes of waste, 456,000 tonnes was collected – of which 93,000 tonnes went to dedicated food recycling collections, with the rest going in general waste and ending up in landfill.

The rest, nearly 150,000 tonnes, went to home composting or ended up in sewage works after going down the drain from kitchen sinks.

Why should YOU reduce food waste?

WE live in a global community and our actions affect people in many other countries. Saving food is the responsibility of each one us and there are lots of small things we can all do every day to make a big difference.

When we waste food, we also waste all the energy and resources that went into producing, processing, transporting and cooking it. We also lose the money spent on all these things – meaning businesses are less efficient and competitive than they could be, and households have spent money unnecessarily.

Collectively, food waste costs Scottish households more than £1billion each year. This means each family in Scotland could save an average of £437 a year by reducing the food they waste.

This can be done through relatively simple things such as planning meals, making better use of storage such as freezers and being inventive when it comes to using up leftovers.