How to help the environment by reducing food waste
Reducing food waste not only helps your budget, it helps the environment, too.
An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted by us every year. This is around one third of all food produced for human consumption. Food waste at this scale leads to overuse of land and water, habitat destruction and decreased biodiversity.
We all need to reduce the amount of food we waste if we want to help protect our environment and beat the climate emergency.
Five ways you can help to reduce food waste
1. Keep track of your kitchen cupboards
Keeping track of what you already have in means you’re less likely to buy food you do not need. You could keep a list, or make sure you check before you do your next shop.
2. Keep an eye on best before and use by labels
When labels say ‘best before’, you can safely use the food or drink after this date, as long as it looks and smells okay. It is about the quality of the item rather than it being unsafe to eat or drink. However, if the label says ‘use by’ do not use food or drink after this date.
3. Plan your meals
Planning your meals for the week means you buy what you need, as you’ve already worked it out ahead. This means less waste, and you can spend less time each day thinking about what to cook or eat.
4. Freeze your food
Although many food labels say to freeze as soon as you buy it, you can freeze food at any time up to its use by date. Then you need to use it within 24 hours after its defrosted again. Freezing food is a great way to keep freshness and put less of your leftovers to waste.
5. Get creative with your leftovers
Speaking of leftovers, get creative with them. Soups, curries, stir fries and risottos can all taste even better from a few extra ingredients. You can find recipe inspiration on the Love Food Hate Waste website.
Recycling your food waste
Even with our best efforts, most have us have thrown out food. We might not pay attention to use by dates, buy too much when we go to the supermarket, or swap home-cooked meals we have planned to have for takeaways.
When we throw away food and it breaks down at landfill sites, it releases harmful greenhouse gases like methane into the atmosphere. Around 8-10% of the world’s greenhouse gases are from food waste. To show the scale, if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the US and China.
Another way we can help the environment is by recycling any food that we do waste.
Some local councils will provide food recycling facilities and other areas may have private operators that will collect food waste. Check with your local council for how you can recycle food waste in your area.
You can find out more about reducing food waste and take their ‘Food waste: fact or fiction’ quiz at Energy Saving Trust’s blog.
Other ways to save energy
To find out how you can save on your energy bills with home improvements that suit your needs, visit the Energy Saving Home Improvement Tool.
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