Love food, hate waste!

Date published: 27 April 2009

Bury residents are playing their part in saving £300 million of food going to waste.

They have joined a Love Food Hate Waste campaign to persuade households to save money by cutting back on throwing food away.

In its first year, the campaign saved £296 million a year, with 137,000 fewer tonnes of food being binned, according to campaign leaders WRAP (Waste and Resouces Action Programme). This means a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 600,000 tonnes, the same carbon impact as 100,000 return flights to Australia.

People in Greater Manchester are helping this year’s campaign by compiling a food diary challenge, which will monitor how much food they buy and throw away.

WRAP says that 6.7 million tonnes of food – a third of the food we buy – is binned by UK homes each year, at a cost of £10 billion.

The campaign encourages people to: better plan their meals, use up the contents of fridges or cupboard before buying more food, measure correct portion sizes, and use freezers better.

A Bury Council spokesman said: “We recognise that although the results of the first year are encouraging, there is much more that we in Bury can do and we’re confident we can continue to support the growing number of households cutting back this waste.”

For advice, visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com