CEnv Article | Tackling the problem of food waste - Going greener

In a monthly column of The Glamorgan GEM, Chartered Environmentalist, Brian Mayne, explores how we can tackle the food waste problem.

The food we throw away has significant environmental, economic and social impacts. According to Which?, we throw away over 10 million tonnes of food waste each year in the UK, creating more than 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – the number one cause of global warming.

Most of this wasted food, over 7 million tonnes of it in fact, comes from our homes as opposed to supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and businesses.

What is even more shocking is they go on to state that 5 million tonnes of this is edible and equates to £15bn of food each year.

So, this means a family of four are wasting £70 a month or £840 a year. This is happening at a time when, according to FareShare, the UK’s longest running food redistribution charity, 8.4 million people in the UK are struggling to afford to eat.

So what can we do about it?