Reducing food waste and supporting local businesses
This newsletter will focus on the benefits reducing our food waste has for the environment, for us as consumers, and for local businesses.
Food waste is an increasing problem and a lot of it comes from the way we manage food. I briefly mentioned in a previous article that about 30-40% of food is wasted globally every year, despite millions of people not having enough food.
When looking in terms of the UK, we throw away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste EVERY year, yet 8.4 million people in the UK are in food poverty. Food waste comes in many different forms including food that is wasted during the production stage, expired food, leftovers, and unsold food. This isn’t even including the amount of packaging that is wasted along with it.
Shopping habits and meal planning
The best way of reducing food waste is in our shopping habits; what we buy and the way we buy food. Planning what you will need and making a shopping list that you will stick to are great ways of reducing waste and saving money. How many of us end up throwing a bunch of stuff out that we didn’t get round to eating? Or end up spending more than we planned through impulse buying, or shopping for bits and pieces every other day rather than planning it out for the week? When looking at reducing how much food and money we waste, it’s important to think realistically about what you will be able to eat in a week and what you will want to eat.
Planning your meals and having a realistic shopping list not only reduces the amount we throw away but can also save you a lot of money! One study found that the average Brit wastes 12.6% of food a week. This amounts to around £10 a week when it is equated to the average amount spent weekly on food shopping. This means, on average, food waste is costing people around £520 a year! And this was just in one study. In other studies, it was found that the average British family wastes up to £800 worth of edible food a year! It all adds up.
Doing a little planning also helps stop meal planning seeming like a never-ending task! It saves time on busy weekday nights and reduces the stress of deciding what to have for dinner every night.
Another way of saving a bit of money and helping reduce food waste is through buying cheaper fruit and vegetables that perfectly edible but are not as symmetrical or pretty looking. Tesco have a scheme called ‘Perfectly imperfect,’ which sells fruit and veg that is in good condition but slightly misshapen. It has saved 50 million packs of fruit and veg from going to waste.
Freezing food and preserving leftovers
If you do end up with a bunch of stuff about to go out of date, why not freeze them? There is lots of options for freezing, including meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, even milk!
Bread is another great option for freezing. I always freeze half of my bread loaves when I buy them in, as I know I’m not going to be able to finish them before they go out of date. Freezing leftovers of meals is another option for minimising waste. Lots of us often make too much of things and freezing it creates an easy meal for another day.
Something else you can freeze that often go out of date quickly are herbs. Herbs often don’t last more than a few days when you buy them. If they are reduced because they expire that day, you can simply buy them cheap and freeze them for when you need them. This works for most herbs, but you can research the best way of freezing the herbs of your choice. It is handy always having them in the freezer for when you are cooking.
Refill stations and supporting local businesses
When it comes to reducing food packaging waste and supporting local businesses, using the refill stations available here are a useful resource.
In Shetland, Bolts mini mart and Sound service station both have refill stations for Shetland milk. This allows you to just bring in your milk bottle rather than continually buying plastic bottles or cartons.
SCOOP Wholefoods is great for getting refills of food. They have lots available including cereal, oats, pasta, rice, seeds, sweets, dried fruit, etc. SCOOP also gets a lot of its produce from local suppliers reducing the ‘food miles’ (greenhouse gases from fuel usage) used to transport it.
All these resources offer easy ways of reducing the unnecessary waste and packaging surrounding these items. I can only speak for the refill options in Shetland, but you can always research your area to see if there are places that offer refill options near you.
Good news round-up:
1. Grey seal baby boom! Grey seal colonies are flourishing in the east coast of England due to the development of safe environmental havens and cleaner North Sea waters. This marks one of Britain’s greatest wildlife success stories.
Photograph: Joshua Bright, The Guardian.
2. Spain and France have officially validated their agreement in the Global Ocean Treaty! They have joined 17 other countries in this treaty that provides a legally binding agreement to protect the ocean. It aims to create vast protected areas of the ocean – covering at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. It was created by the UN in 2023 and can only come into effect when enough countries sign it into law – the UK has promised to do this but has yet to deliver. Greenpeace petition to urge the UK’s action on this is available here to sign: https://act.gp/4aQhyaO
3. One step closer to clean, limitless energy! The UK government has pledged a £410 million investment in nuclear fusion energy. Nuclear fusion is considered a major contender in the future of clean energy as it could promise limitless, clean power that does not emit greenhouse gases or radioactive by-products. While Nuclear fusion plants are still a bit away yet, it shows the UK playing an important part in the global push for sustainable energy sources.
4. The Scottish Government’s Monica Lennon has proposed a new bill that could see the bosses of major polluting companies jailed. The Ecocide Prevention Bill aims to provide harsh penalties for executives whose actions are responsible for major environment damage i.e damage and destruction that is long term or widespread. This includes oil spills, mass deforestation, air or ocean pollution, mining damage, and emissions. The bill has received a lot of support and it is hoped that it will be introduced before June this year.
5. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has created its first protected marine sanctuary. It protects 2 of the country’s remote, uninhabited isles – Bikar and Bokak. The area covers 48,000 square kilometres and is home to the nation’s largest colony of nesting green turtles and several species of shark. The President of the Republic of the Marshall islands has said “Without sustainable ocean ecosystems, our economy, stability and cultural identity will collapse…The only way to continue benefiting from the ocean’s treasures is to protect it.”
And that wraps up my list of some of the environment wins for the week!
I hope this article provided some useful tips on reducing food waste and how it has more than just environmental benefits. Thinking about what and how much we buy helps save us money, can support local businesses, and save us stress and time!
My next article will be about how to cut plastic out of your cleaning routine.
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Sources:
https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/resources/how-to-meal-plan
https://www.tescoplc.com/forgotten-food-costing-families-approx-800-a-year/
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/60272/how-we-got-global-ocean-treaty-what-comes-next/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0enl0dn8jo
https://divemagazine.com/scuba-diving-news/marshall-islands-creates-first-marine-protected-area