15p out of every £ spent on food is thrown away....what a waste

helyg

That shocked me when I read it in the book too.

Very little gets thrown away in our house. Occasionally there might be a piece of fruit that has gone manky at the bottom of the fruit bowl, although usually I find it in time and turn the bits that are still OK into cake/crumble/smoothie etc. Same for bread, sometimes the last slice might start to go mouldy, but if it is just at the sides I usually pick the mould off and toast the remaining bread... If bread is just stale it gets turned into breadcrumbs! Leftover cooked food gets turned into something else (as my gran used to threaten "if you don't eat that now you'll have it fried up for breakfast!").

I just don't understand why they would throw away so much? Surely ready meals etc that are getting near their use by date can be chucked in teh freezer if you aren't going to use them? And why they are throwing away unopened cakes, sweets, chocolate and alcohol I do not know, that would never happen in this house!

princess_lou

I know.. we do have the odd thinh that cannot be saved- but wot has helped methe most (of course) is putting the right portion on plates, then if more is wanted it is in pan etc, if not it will be frozen/ turned into new dish

Bronnie

Is this supermarket / fruit growers 'waste' we're talking about here?

Totally outrageous wherever it comes from!

Awww! 1 million plums thrown away.....presumably the wrong shape/size or not worth the cost of the wages to pick them.

How screwed things have become.

Belisarius

How do they calculate these figures?

princess_lou

Im not sure where the waste comes from- im sure it is a mixture of supermarkets & family homes.. Again nt sure where the figures come from either- sorry- but im sure if i take a while later to google it i should be able to find out(hopefully)

helyg

Belisarius wrote: »

How do they calculate these figures?

I wondered this too... is there a small elf sat in the bottom of my bin totting up what I throw in there?

Or as Bronnie said is it supermarket waste? In which case there isn't a huge amount we can do about it.

Belisarius

helyg wrote: »

I wondered this too... is there a small elf sat in the bottom of my bin totting up what I throw in there?

:rotfl: I was imagining lots of small children with clip-boards scrabbling over rubbish tips ... a new governmental truancy initiative.

Penelope_Penguin

helyg wrote: »

I wondered this too... is there a small elf sat in the bottom of my bin totting up what I throw in there?

Or as Bronnie said is it supermarket waste? In which case there isn't a huge amount we can do about it.

There's loads you can do - if you're really fired up about this write to your MP, lobby your local and county councillors, write to the paper, write to the supermarkets (both your local branch and head office). I've done this on a separate issue, and people power really works

This has been discussed on OS before, so I'll add this to the existing thread.

Penny. x

geordie_joe

helyg wrote: »

I wondered this too... is there a small elf sat in the bottom of my bin totting up what I throw in there?

Or as Bronnie said is it supermarket waste? In which case there isn't a huge amount we can do about it.

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

There's loads you can do - if you're really fired up about this write to your MP, lobby your local and county councillors, write to the paper, write to the supermarkets (both your local branch and head office). I've done this on a separate issue, and people power really works

This has been discussed on OS before, so I'll add this to the existing thread.

Penny. x

The problem is supermarkets would rather buy too much and throw some away than buy too little.

Customers don't like it when they go into a supermarket for something and the supermarket has run out.

But they don't care (or even know) if the supermarket buys too much and has to throw some out. They are just happy they got what they wanted.

Penelope_Penguin

geordie_joe wrote: »

But they don't care (or even know) if the supermarket buys too much and has to throw some out. They are just happy they got what they wanted.

Well, clearly some people do care - they've posted on this thread that they care, and I'm suggesting what they can do about it