Waste Awareness Wales targets food waste
1 Nov 2007
Waste Awareness Wales, the organisation encouraging us to reduce, reuse and recycle our rubbish has today launched its first campaign to help reduce the amount of food waste being thrown away by households across the country.
The new campaign, ‘love food hate waste / hoffi bwyd casau gwastraff’’ is supported by well-known chefs and food professionals, and is aiming to show just how much of the 350,000 tonnes of food waste we bin each year in Wales could be used. The campaign is supported by Welsh chef Dudley Newbery, who will be in Cardiff and Bangor demonstrating quick and easy recipes using typical leftovers. Recipes and tips to reduce the amount of food we waste have also been provided by chefs including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Anthony Worrall-Thompson and Ken Hom.
Dudley Newbery said:
"Unbelievably, in Wales we throw out a third of the food we buy each year - so the campaign is asking people to think about how they can help reduce this huge amount. Many people feel throwing food away isn’t as bad for the environment as other types of waste because it breaks down – but it takes up valuable room in landfill sites and releases the harmful greenhouse gas methane as it rots. And of course wasting food is wasting all those resources that have gone into producing and transporting it as well.
"I am supporting the campaign by asking people to think a little more carefully about their food use – planning meals in advance to use up food in order of shelf-life dates, and using leftovers in another meal rather than binning them. There are so many great meals that can be made with ‘leftovers’ or food that may otherwise be binned, and Waste Awareness Wales have been working with a host of chefs and food writers to design recipes around foods most commonly wasted. And as we throw out £400 million worth of food each year here in Wales, these recipes should hopefully keep our finances, not just the environment, in a healthier state too."
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Tips on cutting down on food waste:
- Use your freezer effectively. If you’ve got foods such as bread or milk you know you won’t be eating immediately, try
 freezing them. Even cheese can be grated and chicken cut up into strips and frozen. Defrost thoroughly and use as soon as they are defrosted.
- Your fridge can be used to bring tired veg back to life. Sit foods such as carrots or cucumber that have gone soft in chilled water - they will soon get their bite back.
- Most fridges are set too warm to be really effective – make sure yours is between 1 and 5 degrees centigrade to make food last as long as possible.
- It sounds simple, but check your cupboards and fridge before you go shopping to make sure you’re not buying items you already have.
- Measure rice and pasta out before you cook them to cut down on cooking too much. As a general guide an adult portion of rice is 75ml – five tablespoons.
- Even food that can’t be eaten can still be diverted from our bins. Try composting at home to get rid of fruit and vegetable peelings, teabags and eggshells – and you get rich compost for your garden for free.
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