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Food Waste

In: Social Issues

Submitted By matteokiruna
Words 489
Pages 2
Matteo Kirunna
30/09/11
English Speaking: ‘Wasting our Food’

1) The Problem with Wasting Food • Families are wasting £680 a year on throwing away foods we can still eat • We are throwing away 8.3 million tonnes of food from our homes every year • On average £50 of food is wasted per average family every month • All of the wasted foods are dumped in landfill sites • The rotting food releases methane & Co2 into the air • Half of the food wasted could have been eaten if only we followed the out-of-date on packaging

2) Why do we throw away so much food? • We are using too much food to make meals for families, food may still remain in pans or bowls for self-serving • Not keeping fruits in fridges, so they become more soft or gone off quicker • Not freezing foods which you are not going to eat for a while • Not following the ‘use by date’ • Putting new foods in front of older foods in the fridge or cupboard • Overestimating our shopping • Throwing away leftovers which can be used for something else

3) The Benefits of ‘Not Wasting Foods’ • If everyone stopped wasting food, it would have the same Carbon Impact as taking of 1 in 4 cars off the road in the UK • It will save you money

4) What are Groceries & Food brands doing about this? • Most of the major supermarket retailers in the UK welcome the campaign and have committed to work with WRAP to identify ways they can help us, their customers, to reduce the amount of food thrown away. This might be through providing more information (recipes, how to store food better etc), the types of products sold (ranges of portion sizes, resealable packaging etc), the way food is sold (e.g. "half price" rather than "two for one" on food that goes off quickly) and so on. More information on what the grocery retailers and food brands are

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