Climate Action Wendover

Food Waste

Approximately 16,000 tonnes of food waste is collected from homes across Buckinghamshire every year, which is enough to fill almost eight Olympic swimming pools. So, with food prices rising by an average of 6% this year and everyday essentials including cooking oils, butter, pasta and milk rising by as much as 10% according to a report in May by the Office for National Statistics, perhaps now is a good time to re-evaluate what we are buying and more importantly how much is being thrown away each week.

Not only does food waste have an impact on household finances but globally, the production of food accounts for 37% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and 40% is wasted. In the UK, 70% of the post-farm-gate food waste comes from households, which is equivalent to £14billion per year and 20 million tonnes of GHG emissions.

With the real concern of food shortages in future, Climate Action Wendover is on a mission to encourage everyone to take part in the www.lovefoodhatewaste.com campaign.

Top Tips to Reduce Food Waste

1. Every day, local cafes, pubs and supermarkets including Sweeney's Budgens of Wendover and Asda bag up food that is on the dateline into a ‘magic bag’ that anyone can collect for a small fee. Download the ‘Too Good to Go’ App to see what is available locally.

2. Do you have un-opened food in the cupboard that you don’t want? Then download Olio and give it away for free. There are also local Food Heroes who collect unwanted food such as bread and make it available to anyone for free.

3. Create a meal plan for the week and only buy what you need to eat. Put what you can’t eat in the freezer and save it for another day.

Join the millions of people around the world who are taking small changes to make a huge difference to our planet.