Top 5 Avoidable Food Waste Items

In September, WRAP Scotland held a conference  to share the findings of their study of the food and drink Scottish households are throwing away.  Kate Streib, RoWAN Project Officer for Inverness, attended on behalf of RoWAN to hear the findings first hand.

Here are some of WRAP's facts:

Between us, we throw away 570,000 tonnes of food and drink each year.  Over two thirds of what we throw away could have been eaten if we had planned, stored and managed it better!  Wait, there's more: half of the good food put in the bin is untouched and 1 in 7 items is still in its packaging.  At least £18 million worth is still in date.

This avoidable waste cost £1 billion a year.  That is £430/household or £550 for a family with children.  That's £8-£10/week thrown in the bin!  Food waste costs the Scottish councils £85 million a year.

Stopping the waste of good food would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking one in four cars off the road.

Now for the top 5 needlessly wasted items: (by weight/year)

1. Milk - 31,000 tonnes

2.Sliced Bread - 25,000 tonnes

3. Carbonated Drinks - 23,00 tonnes

4. Potatoes - 19.000 tonnes

5. Pre-prepared Meals and Snacks 14,000 tonnes

This food waste is costing us all a lot of money as both consumers and tax payers.  By having this information, hopefully we will all identify our own areas for improvement to help fight climate change and save ourselves some money.

Check our  Love Food Hate waste page for more inforamtion and to try our food waste diary.

 Visit WRAP Scotland's website for the full report or click on the pdf attached to this article.