UK wastes a third of food

The UK imports millions of tons of food every year. The energy used to grow and ship the food is compounded when it is not used for its purpose. This is both an important consumer and environmental issue as around 20% of our climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food.

The government waste body WRAP released these statistics March 2007, and plans to publish its research at the end of November 2007. Jennie Price, chief executive of WRAP, said: "Our research has found that about half of the food we throw away could have been eaten.

Wasted food makes up 19% of domestic waste, so even small reductions in every household would have a significant impact on total levels. Many UK households are starting to have composts in their gardens, which is one alleviates some of the wasts impact on our garbage dumps.

The most common reasons for throwing out food are:

Poorly planned shopping and buying more than was needed

Storage - fridges are often too warm, though this throws up a conflict of interest between energy efficiency agendas and waste

Not eating items before their use by date

Children's likes and dislikes of foods

Unplanned or informal or eating patterns leading to food bought that is not needed.

A lot of the waste is because of too much food being prepared, with cooked food more likely to be thrown away than raw ingredients. Of our uncooked food, vegetables and fruit are the most likely to be thrown away without being used, followed by bread and cakes.

"There is a real opportunity here for us to both save some money and help the environment by making a few small changes. The striking point which emerges from the research is that only 10% of those asked realised they were throwing much food away." says Jennie Price from WRAP

According to the edited highlights, only half of this food waste would be edible, while the rest comprises of things like bones, vegetable peelings and tea bags. Nevertheless, this means that for every pound being spent on food around 16p is being wasted.

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