Love Food, Hate Waste

The

Surrey Waste Partnership (which is made up of Surrey County

Council and the 11 district and borough councils in the county),

is currently running a campaign called Love Food Hate Waste which aims to encourage residents to reduce the amount of food

they waste.

Guildford Borough Council are getting into the

full spirit of the campaign by asking residents to take up a food

waste challenge which involves recording their progress as they

try to change their shopping and cooking habits.

Food waste

accounts for 20% of the waste generated by Surrey households every

year with disposal costs in the region of £7.6m. National

research Household Food and Drink Waste in the UK (WRAP, November

2009) shows that an average family with children can save up to

£50 a month on their shopping bill if they take steps to reduce

their food waste and there are significant environmental benefits

too. The energy, water and packaging resources used in food

production, transportation and storage all go to waste when

perfectly good food is thrown away.

Four groups of six

volunteers will be getting together for three evenings to see

whether they are reducing their food waste and saving money, at

the same time. The volunteers are meeting across Guildford Borough

in Merrow (8.00pm Tuesday, 22 June) Ash (8.00pm Monday, 28 June), Stoughton (TBC) and East Horsley (9.30am Tuesday, 7

September).

The group will be discussing what they did

differently during their week, and the subsequent consequences,

why and how food is wasted and monitoring their change in habits.

They will be sharing tips on meal planning, food storage, “rescue

recipes” and making the most from leftovers.

Organiser, Jane

Alexander, Project Coordinator for Recycling at Guildford BC

explains: “We wanted to set a challenge to our residents to

discover how easy it is to save waste at home. We wanted to

highlight that just by doing some simple everyday things in the

home, you can spend less on food, reduce your food waste and help

the environment.”

It'll be interesting to see how they get

on.