The little town that went to war on waste
Prior to December 2015, the unassuming market town of Swadlincote was renowned mostly for its prominent ski slope, proud coal mining history and for producing the world’s first flushing rim toilet back in 1855. ‘Swad’ as the locals call it, can now add another distinction to their cache of local achievements — they’re the town that went to war on waste.
When Sainsbury’s announced their ambitious Waste Less, Save More initiative — a £10 million, five-year plan to tackle household food waste — they invited towns and cities from all over the UK to compete to be their ‘innovation hub’. The winner would receive a £1 million investment to reduce their waste by 50%, potentially saving each household £350 each year. If achieved, it would make the winning town the first place to reach the UN’s Global Sustainability Goal, 14 years ahead of the 2030 benchmark, and serve as the blueprint for future waste reduction roll-outs across the UK. In other words, a big deal.
The applications flooded in (189 of them), from all corners of the UK, but it was the energy, enthusiasm and creativity of the Swadlincote community that bagged them the investment. “Swadlincote was a unanimous hit with the judges,” says Paul Crewe, Head of Sustainability at Sainsbury’s. “We were impressed by their creative ideas such as Food Magicians, and a new community food hub” continues Crewe. “Swadlincote is going to be a beacon for the rest of the UK and this project will be putting them on the map”.
Five months into the Waste Less, Save More initiative and the south Derbyshire town has become an experimental hotbed of waste reduction activity, with ideas and innovations popping up, inspiring residents to connect with each other and curb their wasteful ways. Schools, community centres, groups, the council, residents and retailers are pooling together to be a part of this unique mission.
“We currently have fifteen trials live in Swadlincote with more in the pipeline,” says Deborah Clark, the Manager of the Waste Less, Save More. “We’re running a Fab Foods education programme which involves children doing their own food waste audits at school. Other trials include fridge thermometers for every household, stickers to determine how long you can keep leftovers and intelligent bins that calculate the value of food waste”.
Simple incentives are clearly working. In a recent trial, a whopping 87% of 15,000 Swadlincote residents found their fridge was not operating at optimum temperature, after being given thermometers. If British households lowered the temperature of their fridges, a potential saving of £200 million could be made.
A more dramatic fridge development to hit Swadlincote is the cutting-edge Bosch Home Connect smart fridge. Distributed to 20 families, the fridge comes equipped with cameras inside, allowing people to see what food they’ve got at home while they’re out shopping. Shoppers can check their ‘fridge selfies’ on their app to prevent them from buying duplicate items.
From one app to the next- here at OLIO, we are also thrilled to be a part of the Waste Less, Save More campaign, and flying the flag for team OLIO is Community Lead and Swadlincote local, Toni Dean. She has been doing some absolute sterling work promoting our food sharing revolution to Swad-dwellers. Other than turning locals onto OLIO, she’s been saving food from her local Sainsbury’s that was unable to be collected from the store’s charity partner, and redistributing it on the app.
“This week we had some mangos that were very ripe and the Sainsbury’s team asked if these could be used”, says Toni, excitingly. “I said let’s give it a try and an amazing OLIOer picked them up and made mango jelly sweets out of one and another made mango smoothies!”.
Toni has only been sharing Sainsbury’s stock for three weeks, as well as supply from other sources, and so far she has added over 300 items. “I can already see people switching on to the idea of food sharing as they sign up and use the app,” says Toni. “Attitudes are changing — we are really building a movement here in Swadlincote”.
Deborah agrees. “Lots of people in Swadlincote have already told us they’ve made some kind of change to help them reduce food waste, from using bread clips to keep their loaves fresh or using our spaghetti measurers to make sure they don’t overcook, to bigger changes like using OLIO in their day-to-day routines”.
The buzz in Swadlincote is tangible and infectious. There seems to be a genuine, sweeping change of attitudes flourishing within this tight-knit community. A perfect storm of technological innovation and community spirit. From the Food Saver Champions, who are going around the town engaging residents with their persuasive, grassroots campaigning, to the excitable school children from Eureka Primary School, learning about the value of food during their food waste quiz. “Their ambition is bigger than the town itself” Deborah duly says. We agree.
With seven months remaining and more trials on the horizon, what’s next for the campaign, if it all goes to plan? “We’re planning to come up with a clear blueprint of ideas that have proven results in tackling food waste. After a year of trying and testing, we want to share the success across the UK”.
Who would’ve thought that Swadlincote would go from being pioneers in human waste, 161 years ago, to pioneers in food waste in the present day?
Join the Food Sharing Revolution and download the free OLIO app on the App Store and Google Play.
