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LOVE FOOD HATE WASTE CAMPAIGN |
UK launches campaign to cut food
wastage
3 November, 2007
The United Kingdom has launched a
campaign to encourage its citizens to
eat the leftover food piled in their
fridges and pantries instead of
throwing them out.
The campaign – Love Food Hate Waste –
follows research which found that 6.7
million tonnes of unused food –
ranging from vegetable scraps to
uneaten pizza slices – are dumped
across Britain each year.
According to an article in the British
newspaper The Guardian, households in
the United Kingdom are in effect
throwing away every third shopping bag
of food they buy. Most of the
discarded food ends up in landfill,
resulting in huge environmental damage
and financial loss.
According to the research, around 90%
of consumers admitted that they were
unaware of the amount of food they
regularly throw away. They are being
urged to change their ways through the
national campaign - which is believed
to be the first of its kind in the
world, and is funded and supported
by the British government.
The main reasons given for so much of
waste are buying too much through
unplanned and excessive shopping, poor
storage, and not eating
short-shelf-life items quickly enough.
The research found that, the
convenience of shopping for food on
the internet and multi-buy special
offers by supermarkets are also to be
blamed.
The research has been published by
Britain’s Waste and Resources Action
Program (WRAP), a not-for-profit
company which gets government funding.
The Love Food Hate Waste campaign has
been created to raise consumer
awareness of waste, and to show how
waste can be reduced.
The food industry in general,
including manufacturers and
restaurants, is also being urged to
play their part in the campaign.
In Britain, waste has been increasing
by 3% a year in recent years and will
have doubled between 1995 and 2020
unless action is taken, the research
showed.
It was revealed in the research that
people in the United Kingdom discard a
whopping 6.7 million tonnes of food a
year. About half of this food is, in
fact, edible – with the rest
comprising objects like peelings and
meat bones.
Food accounts for 19% of the total
domestic waste. And, cooked food is
more likely to be thrown away than raw
ingredients.
The survey found that fresh fruits and
vegetables are the most common
uncooked food discarded, followed by
bread and cakes.
Food, when wrapped in bags, produces
methane, which is a highly potent
greenhouse-gas.
The Love Food Hate Waste campaign
suggests the following steps to reduce
waste:
- Use a
shopping list.
- Use a
measure or mug to avoid cooking too
much pasta and rice.
- Keep food
in the fridge.
- Use
airtight boxes.
- Use your
freezer more imaginatively. Fresh
tomatoes can be frozen and ice cube
trays are handy for freezing herbs
and stock.
- Use ageing
fruit by juicing it
- .Use
cooked leftovers to create new
meals, such as bubble and squeak.
Tips on what
to do with leftovers can be found
at WRAP’s new website,
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
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