Thinking about how much food we throw away, households in the UK throw out as much as 7.5 million tonnes of food and drink a year. Most of this ends up in landfills and when it breaks down it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

On a more positive note, when it’s composted in the case of anaerobic digestion, our food waste produces 100% renewable energy. The great thing is that you can compost most of your food at home!

Visit Ealing Council’s food waste recycling page for information on how to order your free food waste bin now!

There’s so much we can do to reduce the amount of household food waste we produce. Listed below are some tips to help reduce our household food wastage foot print.

Better Planning

Start off by planning your meals better. This will reduce the amount of food waste you have dramatically! Only cook enough to serve the number of people you intend to feed.

Check The Date

Make sure you are checking ‘sell by’ dates on everything you buy. We’ve all been guilty of blindly shopping before, only to get home and realise we’ve got two days left to consume.

Need vs Deal

Buy 1 get 1 free deals can be so tempting. It’s easy to get lost in the feeling of victory when you spot a good bargain. Remember – a smart shopper takes advantage of deals, don’t let the deals take advantage of you!

Freeze Your Food

This is the coldest trick in the book to keep your food fresh for longer. You can freeze your poultry, fruits (makes for great smoothies) and veg to stop it from expiring. You can do this with virtually everything.

Lost Its Fizz

I can’t think of anything as disappointing as a flat bottle of coke, which is why this next tip is my favourite. If it’s lost its fizz, not to worry – you don’t have to pour it down the drain. Instead you can pour it down your loo and it does the same job as your everyday toilet cleaner.

Storage

Often food becomes spoilt due to poor storage. Get yourself some air tight containers to store things like crisps or cereal etc. and this will stop it from going stale. You can make this more fun with creating trendy labels.

Left Overs

Simply brown-bag your left overs and have them for lunch the next day. It only takes two minutes the night before and is a good way to save money and reduce your food waste.

Donate a Plate

Donate what you know you know you won’t eat. Things like tinned foods you can take over to your nearest food bank.

Rotate  

Organise what’s in your fridge so that you’ll have longer dates at the back and shorter dates at the front. It’s really quick and easy. You can also stick reminders on your fridge to indicate what needs to be used up.

Best Before 

Packaging that reads ‘best before’ or ‘display until’ are suggestions for manufacturers and aren’t always an accurate description of the quality of a product. If it smells looks and tastes ok to eat, then it often is.