We need to talk about food waste...
Food waste has a gigantic effect on the environment and is a huge contributor to global warming, so why is it we don’t seem to be talking about it?
According to the United Nations, if food waste was a country, it'd be the number three global greenhouse gas emitter – just behind China and the United States. Shocking right? What you might not know, is to properly decompose of food, it needs oxygen and then the gasses need to escape back into the atmosphere. But when we put food waste into a landfill, we essentially trap it all with a thick layer of mud unable to breathe, which then stores up methane - one of the strongest greenhouse gases. Environmentally speaking, its catastrophic.
The obvious solution is don’t buy food you aren’t going to eat. But that’s easier said than done – whether you are single and cooking for 1, or have a big family with unpredictable appetites and schedules. Sometimes it’s not just as simple as finishing what you start when it comes to food. A survey in the UK found that 495 million pounds worth of food is wasted every week – that’s 10 million tons of food waste per year just in the UK. And 1/3 of households admit they throw food away weekly (and we’d love to meet the people that don’t!). We’ve all been there – reaching to the back of the fridge only to uncover out of date meat, or half a soggy cucumber or mouldy cheese or bread. Home composting is all well and good, but wouldn’t it be great if we could avoid the food waste all together? Saving resources for those that need it. It’s estimated that 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. That’s 1 in 9 people on this earth who are famished or malnourished. Every one of them could be sufficiently fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in Europe and the USA.
So, the bad news is we are half the problem. But the good news is….. this means we can be half the solution!
Ways to cut down on your own food waste:
- Look up a food sharing or trading app (we love Olio!) to pass on food products you are going to throw out – or to pick up someone elses food for yourself. One man’s trash is another’s treasure!
- Buy odd looking fruit and veg on your weekly shop. Nature isn’t perfect – but we are so used to seeing perfectly formed carrots and apples that if one looks a bit nobly we are quick to pick another, meaning invariably these odd shape and size foods will go to waste.
- Use your LilyBee’s to preserve the shelf life of your food products – in and out of the fridge. Use your LilyBee as a second skin to keep your food fresh and tasting great
- Don’t forget what’s under your LilyBee! You can use labels, or take the tip from Rose in our team and assign a colour code to your wraps – red for dairy, green for veg etc!
Are you trying to cut down on your food waste? We’d love to hear your tips and tricks!