Glossy poster to help your family cut food waste
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE PLANET... AND YOUR CASH
FAMILIES, supermarkets and restaurants are today being urged to help slash Britain’s food waste.
The Mail on Sunday is asking for a 30 per cent reduction in the amount of food thrown away at home, the equivalent of just 2.2lb (1kg) a week.
Meeting this target would stop as much harmful carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere as taking two million cars off the road – and it would save families money.
Britain wastes almost six and a half million tons of good food every year – enough to fill Wembley Stadium 11 times.
Dame Prue Leith last night led food experts, chefs, restaurant owners and politicians in throwing their weight behind our War on Food Waste campaign.
It will address dangerous misconceptions. More than half of people mistakenly believe, for instance, that air travel has a greater effect on the environment than food waste. But food waste is responsible for at least three times more greenhouse gas emissions.
A major investigation by this newspaper also found:
Households routinely store food incorrectly, throw it out too soon and have little idea of the environmental damage they are causing, according to an alarming survey
Nearly all supermarkets routinely fail to follow official labelling guidelines, causing shoppers to bin £900 million of food every year
More than half of household food waste in England ends up incinerated or on a landfill, producing harmful greenhouse gases
Retailers encourage consumers to buy more by making small pack sizes poor value for money.
Our campaign comes at a critical moment for the country as food thrown away now accounts for one-fifth of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Experts agree that reducing our weekly food waste by 30 per cent – the equivalent of four slices of bread, two apples, one glass of milk, two slices of cheese, two slices of ham and one portion of a leftover meal – would help solve the crisis.
If every family makes this pledge, we can stop 4.5 million tons of CO2 polluting the atmosphere. On top of that, families can save about £160 a year on the weekly food shop.
Dame Prue Leith, the Great British Bake Off judge, said: ‘ I’m delighted The Mail on Sunday is campaigning to cut food waste and hope it will be the start of a nationwide effort to reduce the amount of food we throw away each year.’
A UN report on food waste in March revealed that UK households waste 77kg per person each year, increasing to 100kg including food that goes down our sinks. It calculated the UK was 88th best out of 215 countries in its global league table of food waste per head. In 2015, the Government committed to halving waste by 2030 to hit UN targets. Analysis by the charity, Waste And Resources Action Programme for The Mail on Sunday found that every UK household needs to cut its weekly food waste by 30 per cent to meet our pledge.
Research shows that many of us reduced our waste while stuck at home during the Covid- 19 lockdowns. But WRAP has warned that levels are rising again.
According to a Deltapoll survey of 1,608 people last week for the MoS, four in ten people do not know their fridge temperature should be below 5C and two-thirds don’t realise apples should be stored in the fridge to last longer.
Almost a third said they rarely or never eat food past its ‘Best before’ date. In fact, ‘ Use by’ indicates when a product is no longer safe to eat, while ‘Best before’ is merely an indication of quality.
Nearly three-quarters of people said they want clearer food labels.
In the UK, councils covering 47 per cent of the population still mix food waste with normal rubbish. Some have a separate food waste collection and turn it into energy or fertiliser, which can be used to grow more food.
Once recycled, one lorry-load of food waste can generate enough energy to power 20,000 TVs for an hour. All councils will be required to collect food waste by 2023, but we are urging them to act faster.
Restaurants can play a key role by offering customers ‘doggy bags’ to take home leftovers. In France, this is now a legal requirement.
Our campaign also calls for an end to the rip-off over pack sizes. More than six in ten people said they would buy food in smaller packs if the value for money was the same as larger ones.
We are also calling on all food businesses to publish figures for how much they waste each year.
Last night, food waste prevention champion and Conservative Party co-chairman Ben Elliot said: ‘The Mail on Sunday’s campaign could not be more timely and urgent as the UK hosts the G7 Summit in Cornwall this weekend. Tackling the issue of food waste featured strongly on the agenda. If we all take steps in our everyday lives, we can make a huge difference.’
Marcus Gover, WRAP’s chief executive, said: ‘Not wasting food is one of the most simple and powerful ways we can play our part to both protect the planet and help feed the population. It is really important that The Mail on Sunday has chosen to focus on this.’