As part of Food Waste Action Week we’re raising awareness of how food waste can contribute to climate change as well as how reducing food waste can save you money in your weekly food shop.
In the UK we throw away a massive 6.6 million tonnes of household food waste a year. This waste is responsible for nearly 25 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to 5.4% of the UK’s emissions.
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When food is wasted, all the energy and water it took to grow, harvest, transport, and package it is wasted.
The majority of that waste, about 4.5 million tonnes, is food that could have been eaten and is worth around £14 billion – that’s £60 a month on average for a family with two children! It also requires an area almost the size of Wales to produce all the food and drink currently wasted in the UK.
In a recent survey by Love Food Hate Waste it was found that 81% of people are concerned about climate change but only 32% of those saw a clear link with food waste.
Cllr David A Bithell, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said, “Every household will inevitably have some waste – through things like peelings and food bones, and we need to make sure that these get recycled.
“Here in Wrexham we are all able to recycle our food waste and we’ve provide food caddies and liners to make it easy to do. Many households take advantage of this service and are recycling but there’s always room for improvement.
“Please, if you’re not already recycling your food consider starting it this week. It will help us all to get carbon neutral by 2030.”
We’ll be providing more information about how you can reduce your food waste throughout this week so keep an eye out for it, it could save you and your family money as well as being environmentally friendly.”
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