Should the UK (like France) bar supermarkets throwing out food?

cepheus

Under the law, which will go into effect in July of next year, French supermarkets will have to give unsold food away to charities or donate it for use in animal feed or compost.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/26/3662627/france-outlaws-grocery-store-food-waste/

If we did this I doubt if there would be a need for food banks, since the cost of food as it nears its sell by hour would decrease to near zero. Moreover this would usually be healthy food rather than the sugary stuff, since sugar is a preservative. I suppose this should be accompanied with strong regulations regarding sugar content to avoid the food producers adding more.

Perhaps this should be extended to restaurants as well. Domestic food waste is more problematic. I'm afraid that must be dealt with through education.

cepheus

It's depressing to see the obsession with photo-voltaics on here is distracting people from more cost effective environmental measures (for society as a whole), such as cutting waste.

It seems as if one of the UK supermarkets has taken a lead?

Tesco, the UK's biggest grocer, is expanding a scheme which gives unsold food to charities from warehouses to include some local stores.

Leftover food from 10 of its UK stores will now also be available to local charities through the UK food redistribution charity Fare Share. Tesco said of the 55,400 tonnes of food it threw away in the last year, 30,000 tonnes could have been eaten. Most of this is currently used for animal feed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33003029

tunnel

cepheus wrote: »

It's depressing to see the obsession with photo-voltaics on here

It's not obsession, most posts that occur for PV on here are from people looking for advice in the hope they don't get ripped off by some unscrupulous bar steward who'll happily fleece them, would you buy something for £k's and not do any research.

Remember this is a money saving site!!

theboylard

cepheus wrote: »

It's depressing to see the obsession with photo-voltaics on here is distracting people from more cost effective environmental measures (for society as a whole), such as cutting waste.

I did write something that I've decided sounded a bit ranty, a bit like your comment.
But out of some semblence of courtesy, unlike you, I chose not to post it.

For your info we are cutting waste. But your narrow view doesn't see that.

Martyn1981

@ tunnel & theboylard.

For background, cepheus seems like a nice guy, who is passionate about reducing consumption and cleaning up generation.

Unfortunately, he's even more passionate about spreading anti-PV gibberish.

A while back I challenged this somewhat strange stance and he explained that it was because domestic PV costs 25p/kWh. I said that sounded strange given that the subsidy is less than that, and he referred me to a report showing costs at about that figure.

After a bit of research I found out that the report was based on data from 2012, and ....... wait for it ....... this data was considered by the solar industry as out of date even back in 2012.

I then pointed out that a 4kWp £5k install could produce at 8.9p/kWh based on a 25yr 4% repayment mortgage with a £1k inverter replacement at month 145. Or 7.3p/kWh if new build and £4k at 4%. Or 7.4p/kWh applying the same principle as a repayment mortgage but using your own capital (£5k) at a deemed cost (to yourself) of 2%.

More recently he stated:

cepheus wrote: »

If you remember, my view is that solar is unlikely to become cost effective, for this country as a whole and we should be concentrating on more cost effective renewables such as wind and conservation. This situation remains the case in high latitudes such as the UK.

and I asked him in February to explain this position given:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

but, how do you justify that position (pro wind, anti PV on economic/cost grounds) if PV is now competing directly with on-shore wind, and has beaten (hands down) small scale wind and off-shore wind already?

his reply was ......... well what he said was ........ well ....... I'm sure he's busy and will get round to a reply eventually!

The reality of course, is that we need to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and have a mixed range of renewables to compensate for their intermittency. PV and wind are near perfect partners since they perform best at different times. The fact that PV looks like it will become cheaper than wind soon, even "in high latitudes such as the UK" is just a bonus.

Mart.

Sterlingtimes

I know that pharmacies in parts of Spain collect unused medicines returned from customers and send them to the third world. But is this a good moral practice?

There are dangers in re-circulating drugs just as there are dangers in recycling unsold food. Who takes the liability if the recycled product causes illness or death? Surely, if a supermarket is forced by law to recycle food it should not be liable for the consequences.

BenWASD

I saw something on Facebook about Tesco doing this. I wasn't sure if it was just advert spam but maybe they are having seen this...?

jimjames

cepheus wrote: »

Perhaps this should be extended to restaurants as well. Domestic food waste is more problematic. I'm afraid that must be dealt with through education.

Totally agree that we need to educate more but I'm not sure how. It's not in the supermarkets or food companies interest to sell less product so they won't promote it.

I'm constantly shocked by the amount of food that friends waste either through treating sell by dates as disposal date or by not making use of left over food.

I think we are pretty close to zero on our food waste. What doesn't get eaten by us goes to the chickens, rabbits or cats so all that is left is normally bones.

Meals get made from left overs so if something is not eaten one day it's incorporated into another meal or frozen. Even if not for environmental reasons it should be for money saving when so many people say they are struggling.

cepheus

theboylard Old Yesterday, 3:16 PM

Originally Posted by cepheus
It's depressing to see the obsession with photo-voltaics on here is distracting people from more cost effective environmental measures (for society as a whole), such as cutting waste.

I did write something that I've decided sounded a bit ranty, a bit like your comment.
But out of some semblence of courtesy, unlike you, I chose not to post it.

For your info we are cutting waste. But your narrow view doesn't see that.

I'm afraid exactly the opposite is the case. I'm suggesting there is a very narrow focus on here.

Probably the most effective 'Green' measures available would be to reduce obsessive consumerism by simply buying less stuff or manage with something until it wears out rather than throw it out due to being unfashionable. Reduce all the unnecessary journeys we could share, walk and cycle, and replace high carbon food products and packaging with more friendly alternatives.

It's not nearly as sexy as Photo-voltaics and Tesla cars I admit, but very effective environmentally and cost-wise.

cepheus

Martyn1981 wrote: »

@ tunnel & theboylard.

For background, cepheus seems like a nice guy, who is passionate about reducing consumption and cleaning up generation.

Unfortunately, he's even more passionate about spreading anti-PV gibberish.

A while back I challenged this somewhat strange stance and he explained that it was because domestic PV costs 25p/kWh. I said that sounded strange given that the subsidy is less than that, and he referred me to a report showing costs at about that figure.

After a bit of research I found out that the report was based on data from 2012, and ....... wait for it ....... this data was considered by the solar industry as out of date even back in 2012.

I then pointed out that a 4kWp £5k install could produce at 8.9p/kWh based on a 25yr 4% repayment mortgage with a £1k inverter replacement at month 145. Or 7.3p/kWh if new build and £4k at 4%. Or 7.4p/kWh applying the same principle as a repayment mortgage but using your own capital (£5k) at a deemed cost (to yourself) of 2%.

More recently he stated:



and I asked him in February to explain this position given:



his reply was ......... well what he said was ........ well ....... I'm sure he's busy and will get round to a reply eventually!

The reality of course, is that we need to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and have a mixed range of renewables to compensate for their intermittency. PV and wind are near perfect partners since they perform best at different times. The fact that PV looks like it will become cheaper than wind soon, even "in high latitudes such as the UK" is just a bonus.

Mart.

I don't wish to continue this thread with a detailed discussion of subsidies complete with jargon to confuse the situation. If you wish to demonstrate Photo-voltaic technology has advanced enough to make environmental sense, I suggest a different thread in which any mention of subsidies are banned.

Everyone who has had one of these systems installed simply states a) the unsubsidised cost of the system to install, b) the total electricity produced to date c) time of installation, d) area e) approximate location and f) orientation.

You could use an on-line spreadsheet so everyone could enter their data. From this it should be easy enough to work out if they are viable or soon will be viable.

I really would be interested to see this, but no mention of discount and subsidy rates, or implications of intermittency - at least until the figures above have been established which forms a firm basis to start a meaningful discussion.

EricMears

cepheus wrote: »

It's depressing to see the obsession with photo-voltaics on here

What on Earth has that - or indeed the subsequent diversions - got to do with the subject of this thread ?

Anyone eschewing PV topics should be able to look at a thread title and avoid those that they think might offend them.