Council hands out advice in bid to cut food waste
A COUNCIL recycling team has highlighted the most commonly found items it wants people to stop putting in their black rubbish bags, and says some of them need not have been thrown away in the first place.
One of the most common recyclable materials still found in black bags is food, according to Swansea Council, and it’s called the problem “avoidable”.
The food waste is often being discovered in its original packaging, meaning both food and other recyclable materials all end up buried in landfill. Bread tops the list of most commonly wasted foods across the UK, with almost 900,000 tons thrown away every year.
It is followed by potatoes in second place at around 800,000 tons and then milk in third, with around 490 million pints wasted.
The council’s recycling team has said that if people must throw food away, they should first remove it from its packaging so they can recycle both items separately.
And it has offered the following tips on how to avoid food waste: ■ Firstly, remember “best before” refers to quality. After this date, it might not be at its best but it will still be safe to eat. Use your common sense to make a judgement. ■ Secondly, storage is key. Keep your bread fresher for longer by keeping it in the original packaging and storing in a cool, dark and dry place, like a bread bin or cupboard.
Likewise, fresh spuds also like a cool, dark, airy place but not the fridge. ■ The ideal fridge temperature to keep milk – and everything else – fresher for a lot longer is between 0-5°C. ■ If you’re not going to use up these items in time, to stop them going to waste you can freeze bread and milk at any time in its original packaging to defrost in future. ■ Boil and mash any leftover spuds and freeze in portions in separate freezer bags or reusable containers to defrost at your convenience.