World wastes at least a billion tons of food a year

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

UN HQ, May 2011: The United Nations said recently that about 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted every year, which amounts to roughly one third of all the food produced for human consumption.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization commissioned a report on food loss and waste, as rising prices and diminished production worldwide have contributed to an increase in food insecurity.

"The issue of food losses is of high importance in the efforts to combat hunger, raise income and improve food security in the world's poorest countries," the report states. "Food losses have an impact on food security for poor people, on food quality and safety, on economic development and on the environment."

According to the report, food losses occur as a result of inefficiencies in food production and processing operations that diminish supplies. Food waste, by contrast, is when retailers and consumers throw edible food in the trash.

Consumers in rich nations waste a combined 222 million tons a year, according to the report. That's almost as much as all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa. The report puts much

of the blame on retailers in rich nations that throw out food simply because it looks unappealing, and the food industry's 'all-you-can-eat' marketing tactics, which encourage consumers to buy more than they need.

Food price hikes could push millions to poverty "Perhaps one of the most important reasons for food waste at the consumption level in rich countries is that people simply can afford to waste food," the report sates.

Food loss, on the other hand, is mainly a problem in the developing world, where nations lack the infrastructure and technology to efficiently produce food, according to the report.

"Given that many [small] farmers in developing countries live on the margins of food insecurity, a reduction in food losses could have an immediate and significant impact on their livelihood," the report states.

But food is not the only resource that is being wasted. By throwing away so much food, the world is squandering water, land, energy, labor and capital, the report found.

How much have your food bills gone up this year?

To reduce food loss, the report recommend increasing investment in the developing world to make food production more efficient.

In rich countries, the report recommends educating consumers about the extent and consequences of food waste. It also suggests that retailers should relax quality standards and sell produce that is grown closer to where it is sold.

The report says retailers should find ways to make better use of food that would otherwise be thrown out, such as donating it to charity.

Consumers should plan their food purchases more carefully, making sure to consume perishables before the expiration date, according to the report.

What also does not make any sense at all – and yes, I am back at one of my pet hates – is that int eh UK, for instance, we import “organic” green beans from Kenya. Those green beans are a vegetable crop that people there do not eat themselves and produce only for us on land that they could much better use growing food for Kenyans.

I have no problems with bringing in exotic foods and if there be a surplus of Kenyan specialities that we could import and thus give some income to the [poor] farmers in that East African country then that is fine. But what the UK and others do to have Kenyan farmers grow food stuff for us while taking away land and water resources from their own foods is unsustainable and cannot and must not be condoned.

On the other hand people in the developed world, such as the UK and the USA, for example, seem to have lost (one) the ability to cook from scratch and (two) understand the term “best before date” as “throw by date” or “throw just before day” and do not understand that much of that can still be used on the day or a day or so thereafter, maybe longer even depending on the product or produce. Thus, much food is, unnecessarily, thrown away.

In addition to that there are the leftovers which people today often have no idea what to do with. They may go and buy ready-made heat only “Bubble & Squeak” but that they could actually make that from leftover veggies they have no idea. Or, at least, so it would appear.

OK, we all do have stuff that goes off at times, and it happens to me as well, you bet. But knowing what to make from things that may be reaching the going off stage was something our grandparents knew and we must relearn those skills.

An apple that has a little spot of rot does not have to be thrown and neither a pear or a pepper. If a pepper is getting a little soft and maybe no longer good for a salad then use it in cooking. Then again, one would have to know how to cook and what to cook with a pepper now, would one not.

One of the greatest wasters of food, however, are stores and often all it needs is for them to find one veg with a spot on it of rot in order to throw out the entire box. And they not just throw it out; they also ensure that no one can salvage the thrown out box. In order to make sure no one will and can make use of the wasted veggies and such they will douse the boxes liberally in chlorine bleach. Not very environmentally friendly either.

When I was a child greengrocers would ply us with bags of stuff that was still good but needed a little sorting and cutting out a little spot here and there, whether apples, pears, peaches, tomatoes (my Gran made tomato sauce from such tomatoes for canning), and other stuff, for nothing, and the same was true with bread from the baker's at the end of the day. Today this, apparently, is illegal under British and EU laws. I think the law is an ass and it needs changing back not common sense.

© 2011

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Turning trash into treasure

Diverting waste is the ultimate act of sustainability

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

There are abundant resources for any home sustainability project you wish to undertake. All you have to do is learn to look in the right places first! And, these resources are completely free.

There is nothing more sustainable than trying to get the most use out of the embodied energy of any material. That means: if you have got an old cupboard you don’t have a place for anymore, don’t smash it and use it as firewood! Countless gallons of water and petroleum went into turning that wood into a cupboard, so brainstorm other ways to use it in its high-energy state, or give to someone who can use it. In fact I am normally the one who ends up with such an item from others, as I am generally happy to accept such donations, though I have to say that my home is currently a little overflowing with such items.

In “Cradle to Cradle”, the authors talk about how recycling materials often results in “downcycling”– where the subsequent use of the material results in low-grade, un-recyclable products. Since this is the current state of design, recycling is nowhere near “sustainable.” On the other hand, reusing materials and not thinking of them as “waste” leads to a more ecologically-responsible lifestyle.

Don't let me loose on any skip, as dumpsters are called over here, as long as there is place at home, in the garage or the shed. Alas there are times where stuff has to remain there for one or the other reason. The biggest one is that I am not a driver and do not own a motorcar. Thus transportation is a problem at times and other times it is the case, as it is at present, that there is simply no space either in the house, the grange or the shed. The grange is full of bicycles, abandoned and some damaged, to be rebuilt, and the shed is just, well, full. But using found and available materials makes everything in my home all the more specific, original, and creative!

Here are some tips for where you can find just about anything you need.

“Garbage picking” in affluent neighborhoods. This is by far the most successful means of acquiring excellent materials. Simply driving or biking around the streets on trash night (easily determined on the Internet), there are tons – at times literally – of interesting and useful things to be picked up.

The neighborhoods don’t have to be affluent either, but I think you’ll find that the rate of good materials is higher on a house-to-house basis in such neighborhoods. Shame on them for being so wasteful… but good for you and your projects.

Freecycle or the “Free” section on Craigslist. Dozens of furniture items, building materials, and miscellaneous household stuff are being given away right now in your neighborhood on these online forums! For FREE! When was the last time you could get loads of lumber for free? Also, check out the barter and other sections for good deals.

Dumpsters or skips, as they are called in Britain, or Containers in Germany: Ever driven around to the back of a grocery store or a strip mall? There is lots of great stuff there but, and here it comes; in many places going through those is, theoretically and practically, regarded as trespass and theft. So, you have been warned. Check your local ordinances and laws as to this.

Tag sales. Sometimes people just don’t know what goodies they are tossing out.

Free box. Some community projects, especially cooperatives, may offer a free box. Common items include clothing, slightly damaged tools, and miscellaneous small items.

Wholesalers. Occasionally you will find large, unusual items from food distributors, retailers, supply stores, etc. This includes 55-gallon drums. And don’t forget…

The Junkyard! Want to build a wind turbine for home use? It’s a pretty simple procedure… and it requires a car alternator. Get one for a couple bucks at a junk yard!

Well, I think you are getting the idea.

I am lucky, in a way, that I often find useful items thrown away by people in my day job. I love litter bins... and on top of that there is what people “fly tip”.

While, officially, I hate fly tippers, and that is true, there are times when the stuff is rather useful, such as a bow saw – perfectly usable still though may need a new blade – dumped by some tree surgeons that fly tipped a load of branches in the park.

I could start a very long list here of stuff people throw into bins, or not, as the case may be, and also lose and never bother to cone back for but that would be way too long and, I should think, boring. Suffice to say I won't have to buy a woolly hat for years.

© 2011

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Landfills nearly at capacity

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

According to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) we have less than 7 years landfill capacity left in the UK. The fact is that some areas have no capacity left, SE England only 3 years or so capacity left.

This information was distributed by Tweeter @earthexchange (Alex Albon) from Cheshire, UK, and I would not doubt this one bit.

In fact, in my personal opinion, I am surprised that, as a nation, we still, basically, have 7 years left. Holes in the ground are hard to come by and we must make a serious change in our habits and behavior. Exporting our waste, as we do already to some extend cannot be allowed to be the option.

In the Unites States some areas, such as New York State and New York City, and some states further south even, have run out of ground space and are shipping – yes, you read right – their waste all the way into Canada, to places in Ontario and Quebec.

This is madness in the extreme and only a serious change in people's attitude, and that of industry, will make inroads here.

A serious reduction in waste is what is needed and that starts at the manufacturer and retail store. Personally I cannot see what, for instance, the replacement brushed for a Braun electric tooth brush come in their own individual packages which are then in a huge blister package that is very hard to recycle to boot. And this is but one example of the total packaging madness.

It is, predominately, packaging what fills up the landfill sites in this country and elsewhere and it is packaging that we must reduce. Eliminating is not possible, that I know, but reducing must be and is.

And this is also the place were reuse of bottles and glass jars comes in and it is reuse not just by consumers who upcycle the stuff into something else but a reuse by the manufacturer taking the bottles and jars back to be refilled. It has been done with bottles always until the disposable came about in the 1970s though it has not, as yet, been done with glass produce jars, but it could and can.

There are but a number of opening sizes and lid types for all glass jars on the market worldwide and therefore it is not rocket science to take them back and refill and reuse them. It makes sense in more than one way too for it saves costs for the manufacturer of the produce as well.

Time we began starving the landfill in a rather serious way.

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Exporting recycling to China – and elsewhere - is 'better than binning it'

Shipping plastic and paper waste to China and other far away places for recycling causes less environmental damage than binning it in the UK, according to study. Doh?

Sending the waste more than 10,000 miles is still more efficient in terms of carbon emissions than carting it off to landfill and using brand new materials to manufacture replacement goods.

These are the findings of a study carried out by the government-funded Waste & Recycling Action Plan (WRAP) and will be music to the ears of district councils the length and breadth of the land, under siege from local paper reporters keen to prove the 'scandal' of waste exports.

Shipping waste overseas is increasingly common the UK now collects more recycling than it has facilities to process domestically while rapidly growing economies such as China are hungry for raw materials.

Over the past decade, the export of waste paper and plastic bottles has increased tenfold.

Liz Goodwin, WRAP's chief executive, said: "It may seem strange that transporting our unwanted paper and plastic bottles such a distance would actually be better for the environment but that is what the evidence from this study shows.

"As more and more of this material is being sold to China we wanted to know the impact that was having on the environment, and specifically whether the CO2 emissions from the transport outweighed the benefits of the recycling.

"Although this study is only part of the environmental impact story, it is clear that there are significant CO2 savings that can be made by shipping our unwanted paper and plastic to China.

"In some cases, we just aren't able to reprocess everything we collect or there isn't enough of it to do so. In these cases, shipping it to China, which has a high demand and need for material, makes sense in CO2 terms.

She added that recycling waste produced by the UK in the UK where possible was still the preferred option.

"WRAP will continue to build both the environmental and economic case for domestic recycling," she said.

Regardless of what WRAP may like to greenwash with its report, the fact is and remains that shipping such materials abroad should not, in fact, have to happen. Such sorting and recycling of such materials should be done here, at home. Not only in order to create jobs but mainly to save the environmental costs of shipping the stuff all over the globe – for it does not just go to China – and also so that it could be guaranteed that the recycling be done in a proper manner. However, it seems to be considered better to have the stuff out of sight and therefore out of mind.

The other excuses, as can be seen above, seem to be that it is better for the environment so send our recyclables abroad as otherwise we would have to dump them into landfills. Why would we have to do so. There is no excuse, and that given by WRAP is just a feeble one, for not processing this all here in the UK. Time we got some action going in this country.

Alas, we have the NYMBYs that will not want to have a recycling plant here or a recycling business there, and they always win the day – amazingly. Same as when it comes to waste burning electricity generating plants or CHP ones.

In many instance the waste is not going to the right places for recycling as recent finding showed but end up on refuse dumps in other countries, such as in Africa, in the case of electronic waste, much of which is toxic.

The biggest problem with Britain is that we are no longer interested in producing anything whatsoever in this country and hence we send everything abroad to be processed and no amount of greewashing from a government-sponsored Quango alters that fact nor the fact that sending shiploads of recycling materials abroad to be processed is NOT sustainable in any way, shape or form.

All we get from government, and not just that of the UK, is lots of talk as far as the environment is concerned and sustainability, and lost of fines but no incentives, but, unfortunately government has no idea how to walk the walk.

© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Food Waste

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

While I, personally, as many of my readers will have come to know, hate waste of any kind and would love to see everything that is considered waste re-purposed and reworked into something (else) useful, I abhor the waste of food and food waste above all.

I know that while some some waste, and this is also and especially true as regards to food, is unavoidable, for one reason or the other, the wholesale waste of food in our nations' kitchens is horrendous.

Having had a childhood where food was not always plentiful and in constant supply, to say the least, wasting food, especially unnecessarily, to me is just an anathema.

My Elders had clandestine “allotments” where we grew green vegetables and potatoes and such – much left to Nature to look after for most of the time – and we also made use of especially of Nature's bounty in general, including for meat and fish and as kids we knew how difficult it was to have enough.

Therefore, when I see how people in most of the “rich” countries, such as the UK, the USA, and such, just waste food makes me was to hit those people with abandon with something heavy.

In my primary line of work I some across needlessly wasted and discarded food of all kinds on a very regular basis. The value of unopened food thrown away from one largish picnic alone amounted to about US$100 (£50) and I am sure that daily we look at that amount ending up wasted in just one of Park here.

I do not even want to mention the food that is wasted in restaurants, hotels and such, and especially also in events catering, and also in the Houses of Parliament themselves. So, when Gordon Brown tried to tell the British people to stop wasting food I doubt he had a look at the kitchens and restaurants at the Palace of Westminster and other government institutions.

But, in one way he is right. We must stop wasting food.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

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Taking notice of the invisible wasteful things

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The most frequently discussed and mentioned way to go green is changing habits. To do this, instead of that, we are told and such. However, much less do we here mention of one as important if not more important than changing habits and that is “changing the mindset”.

Habits are one thing; put the empty glass bottle into the recycling bin for glass, the waste paper into the paper recycling bin, and so on, instead of simply chucking those things into the garbage can, which then ends up, more often than not, in the landfill. Changing the mindset is where things must get to and that is much more important and much more difficult, I think, for most. Me must develop, the older generation as much as the younger generation, a “green mindset”.

So, how does this mindset look in practice? In fact, I think we must look at this further in a separate essay, so I shall just go on like this here for the moment.

For many of us, especially the younger people, what is considered normal is in fact very wasteful indeed.

We are, so to speak, surrounded by invisible wasteful things. They are not really invisible, obviously, but they might as well be since we do not notice them.

What we are talking about here are things like individually wrapped cheese slices, small boxes of food staples that could be bought in bulk, bottled water, disposable paper plates, and much, much more. And that's just for the kitchen!

There are many other areas of life where it's just as bad, like jumping in the car to go somewhere that is in walking distance, throwing away a computer or cellphone after a couple of years, etc.

Computers, especially, do not have to be thrown after just a few years, unless they really are no longer working because of a fault that cannot be fixed (easily and cheaply). They do not get obsolete just because Bill gates tell us so and makes it so in that the new version of the software require ever more powerful machines and such. If the PC has problems with an old version of Windows because no more updates for it, no more programs that want to work on it, then it is time (well, it is anyway) to ditch Windows and find a comfortable Linux version.

All of these things might seem fairly benign on their own, but when they are added all up together, then it is obvious that this is a massive waste.

Not to mention that we too often forget to count how a thing was made: A paper plate is small, but think of all the trucks and chainsaws that went out to cut down trees, transport them for processing; think of all the energy and chemicals required to turn it into cardboard, and then package it and ship it to a store. And then you would use it a few minutes and throw it in the trash?

The same is true, however, also with other items. The glass jar, for instance, that once contained jam, pickles or peanut butter; you finish with it, you throw it into the trash. We all, most of anyway, do that. What did, however, our grandparents and maybe even parents do with empty glass jars? They would reuse them umpteen times for storing leftovers, or for storing buttons, nails, screws, etc.

The old homesteaders and frugal farming folks used old tin cans for a variety of jobs and also recycled them into scoops, lanterns, and many other things.

There are better ways to do things, and once you change your 'lens' and start seeing waste that was previously invisible to you, these better ways will become apparent, especially once each and every one of us applies the “Green Mindset” (look out for the essay to come).

© M Smith (Veshengro), June 2008

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Britons wasting £10 Billion worth of food a year, research says

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We’ve already heard lots about the food crisis that is threatening global development, and we have had plenty of debate about how eating no meat, a little meat, fake meat and even the plain old potato might help ease global hunger, stop global warming, and generally make life easier for all of us. But let’s forget about what we do eat for a moment – a new report coming out of the UK shows the staggering costs of what we don’t eat:

The British people are throwing away £10 billion worth of food that could be eaten each year, £2bn more than estimates have previously suggested, a government-funded programme to cut waste has revealed.

And that folks, is ten billion Pounds Sterling as in British billion and not US billion. In other words the calculation that someone made of this being equal to US$20 billion is off as the US has a different billion to the UK, so at least I have always understood that. Apparently the US billion is a thousand million and the other billion a million million.

The average household, ranging from a single older person to a group of students, is throwing out £420 of such food each year and the sum rises to £610 for the average family with children.

About £6bn of the wasted annual food budget is food that is bought but never touched - including 13m unopened yoghurt pots, 5,500 chickens and 440,000 ready meals dumped in home rubbish bins each day. The rest is food prepared or cooked for meals but never eaten because people have misjudged how much was needed and don't eat the leftovers.

Well, I guess I must be one of the odd ones out, as very little gets thrown out; at least not into the trash can. The important thing is to make sure that one;'s food is in date and rotate supplies, be those cans or other stuff.

Leftovers, if perfectly good, goes in the frigde and is used next day. Cans the contents of which has only been used half, say, also can be saved in that one uses food saver containers and, again, keeps the stuff in the fridge till the next day.

The problem is though that most people cannot cook from scratch anymore, at least not in this country, that is to say in Britain, and either entirely rely on ready to do meals or such. And even if they cook from scratch they just cannot think of what to do with leftovers. Children turn their noses up at something cooked from leftovers but there is nothing wrong with it and if the person doing the cooking has imagination and flair in cooking and often all that is needed is just a little then nice meals can be made from such leftovers.

The complete £10bn consists of food that could have been eaten, not including peeling and bones, the researchers say. Tackling the waste could mean a huge reduction in CO2 emissions, equivalent to taking one in five cars off the road.
The figures have been compiled by WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, which previously made the £8bn estimate and has warned we are throwing away a third of the food we buy, enough to fill Wembley stadium with food waste eight times over in a year.

Food waste has a significant environmental impact, and that not only from having to go somewhere. The research confirms that it is an issue for us all, whether as consumers, retailers, local or central government. This will, I believe, spark, and so it should, a major debate about the way food is packaged, sold, stored at home, cooked and then collected when it is thrown out.

While I have just mentioned the way food is packaged the food packaging here as waste, is and was not even the issue, but could also be mentioned when it comes to waste per se. That, however, could be another story all together.

What is most shocking here the most is the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings. It highlights that this is an economic and social issue as well as how much we understand the value of our food.

Consumers' wastefulness is costing them three times over. Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they do not eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates, and they pay for that through their council taxes and such. Then there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin.

In addition to that there is the ethical bit, so to speak. We waste tons and tons of food daily while there are 1,000s upon 1,000s in this country and elsewhere in the developed world – I do not even want to mention the poor in the developing world, the are I still call Third World – who go hungry. I must say that I, like probably many of my generation, was raised with the adage of not wasting food, whether on the plate or elsewhere. Being of Romani-Gypsy stock may have something to do with that too as food was not always plenty.

When it comes to food waste though and it having to be dumped it is time to start thinking seriously about municipal composting programs like those in Mexico, Seattle and San Francisco, and on an individual level we can all take responsibility by biting off only what we can chew - check out some of the helpful tips on everything from portion sizing to storage to using left overs at Love Food Hate Waste, the campaign that commissioned the original report.

© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008

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Food Waste

The beginning of November 2007 saw the launch of the “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). The mission of the “Love Food Hate Waste”campaign is to get us, the people in general, to reduce the amount of food – which is rather horrendous – that we waste at home.

But, I would like to ask, what about the food, perfectly good food, that is being thrown away before it ever leaves the farm, often by other of the powers that be – and I am not talking about meat from animals with Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD), which is safe for human consumption (yes, folks, it is, and much of the beef that comes from Argentina in fact is full of the stuff) – to keep prices artificially inflated, especially in times of glut.

Some years ago apple growers in Kent were forced by the government to dump “overproduction” – maybe someone should have had a word with the trees to stop producing so many apples that year – didn't they known there is a quota? – in holes, huge holes, dug for that very purpose, on their farms. Those farmers were livid as there were not even allowed to give those perfectly good apples away free to people in need.

What was the reason for such an outrage of wanton destruction of perfectly good food?

Simply the fact that there was a glut of English apples – and what is the problems with that, I am sure, some readers may now ask – and the “Intervention Board”, as I believe it was called then, stepped in to keep the prices artificially up in the shops. The people who benefited from this action were not the farmers or the ordinary people, the consumers; the only ones who did were the middlemen, not even the retail traders. In addition to price fixing the “Board” intervened as a glut of English apples would have meant a reduction in the share of the market for apples from other European Union countries, such as France.

We also must here consider those fruits and vegetables that do not make it to the shelves of the stores and to our tables because the middlemen decide that the consumer does not like misshapen fruit and vegetables, or those with slight blemishes. The truth is that many consumers indeed do not want apples with slight natural blemished or misshapen carrots or the like. In addition to that there are those that never make it and get destroyed because the EU bureaucrats in Brussels, so we are being told, have deemed them not to be the right size or shape. It appear that only apples, pears, tomatoes, etc. of a certain size and shape are, according to those Eurocrats, proper and therefore only those sizes may be sold to the consumer. Come on, a pound (yes, I talk Imperial) of carrots is a pound of carrots whether they are huge (and then rarely have taste) or small and crooked.
Maybe someone needs to tell those that sit in ivory towers, whether in Brussels, Strasbourg or in Whitehall, that, unlike manufactured goods, fruit and vegetables do not come in uniform shapes and sizes and do not, generally, grow in a mold. Apples, pears, peppers, tomatoes, when left to grow naturally, are all different sizes and shapes, some large, some small, some with little blemishes, some not; that is Nature's way.

With waste like that we have to start as regards to reducing food waste before we have a go at we, the consumer.

While it is indeed true that too many of us waste about half of the food that we buy in the stores every week because we buy too much and it does not get eaten or leftovers are simply thrown into the garbage instead of using them the next day – waste no want not – in order to reduce the food waster per se the start must be made at the beginning of the chain. This may mean that the consumer will have to learn to accept, once again, misshapen fruit and veg, the way they naturally grow, and also the little blemishes that are there naturally and only are not generally found in the boxes at the food stores because they are removed by the packing houses and, more often than not, are being destroyed there.

We are seeing the return of blemished apples and other fruit and veg and those of different sizes and shapes like, for example, in the Basics range of produce at Sainsbury's.

Food for thought, I hope...

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), December 2007

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Recycling alone will not do

Even if we would recycle everything that can be recycled in the UK – and the same is probably true also for elsewhere – there would still simply too much waste. Something must be done with that.

There is only one answer to this problem; we simply MUST reduce our waste; the waste that we produce in households, in industry and especially the packaging waste and I am not only referring here to the plastic carrier bags.

The problem is that, probably even then, after the step above, there will still be some stuff left that needs to be disposed off. In an ideal world, maybe, that would not be the case but...

...we do not live in an ideal world and won't be, I am sure, for some time to come.

Therefore the non-recyclable waste must be used to produce energy, whether this is by means of incineration in waste-fuelled electricity power plants – no NIMBYS please – or by anaerobic digestion and the use of the resultant methane gas for the generation of electricity, or as gas for heating and cooking, does not matter. What matters is that holes in the ground are no longer an option.

Other countries can do it and are doing it rather well. However, when this even gets as much as suggested in Britain firstly everyone – especially the likes of those that claim that they are all for the environment – gets up in arms against such incinerating electricity generators and we are also being told that it cannot be in Britain as, apparently, Britain is different to Germany, Holland or Sweden. Then again we are also told that Britain is different when it comes to, say, micro-generation of electricity and selling of possible surplus from such activities back to the national electricity grid, but then, that is rather another story.

Regarding waste we have only one major option and that, aside from recycling, is reducing the waste that we produce. We must look at recycling maybe also in a different light, e.g. Not so much to the large commercial operation but in fact looking at the craftsman or -woman who has ideas of how to turn waste into reusable items. This, however, also requires a different approach by banks and grant-giving bodies. I guess this is, however, again something that could not possibly be done in the UK.

Food for thought, I hope...

...now let's go and make a change.

© M V Smith, November 2007

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Recycling alone will not do

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Love Food Hate Waste campaign launched in the UK

LONDON - New research has revealed that Britons waste a whooping 6.7 million tons of unused fresh fruit, vegetables and baked items annually. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimated that the cost of these food items touches at least £8 billion per year.

Therefore a new campaign called 'Love Food Hate Waste' has been launched in the country with an aim of increasing awareness among consumers. The organizers estimated that almost one third of all food purchased in Britain's High Street ends up being wasted.

Food that is thrown away often ends in landfills, where it decays and released gases like methane, which are classified greenhouse gases. The WRAP claims that when energy expended to pack and transport the food is taken into account, almost 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere.

"Our research showed that 90 per cent of consumers are completely unaware of the amount of food they throw away. Once attention is drawn to it however, we know that people are surprised and keen to take action," said Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP. "If we could halt the amount of food being wasted in this way, we would make a big impact – the same as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads."

The Love Food Hate Waste campaign is also being backed by celebrity chefs including Ainsley Harriott, who said that throwing away vast amounts of food was a criminal waste. "You don't have to be a chef to know how to cut down on food waste, you just need to care about your food and your pocket and the rest will follow," he added.

For more information on the campaign as well as tips to prepare and store food, please visit the website www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

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Love Food Hate Waste campaign launched in the UK

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