UK throwing away £13bn of food each year

Waste and recycling advisory body says 4.4m tonnes of household food waste thrown away in 2015 could have been eaten

An estimated 7.3m tonnes of household food waste was thrown away in 2015 — up from 7m tonnes in 2012. Photograph: Alamy

UK households binned £13bn worth of food in 2015 that could have been eaten, according to new figures which suggest that progress in reducing the national food waste mountain has stalled.

Despite concerted efforts to reduce food waste through the entire supply chain, a new national update from the waste and recycling advisory body Wrap revealed that an estimated 7.3m tonnes of household food waste was thrown away in 2015 — up from 7m tonnes in 2012.

That meant the average UK household wasted £470 worth of food, which went in the bin when it could have been eaten. The avoidable food waste generated 19m tonnes of greenhouse gases over its lifetime — and preventing that pollution would be equivalent to taking one in four cars off UK roads, Wrap said.

It pointed to progress made since it started assembling detailed records and analysis nine years ago, but said that falls in food prices and rising incomes since 2014 had reduced the incentive for people to cut their food waste, halting a previous downward trend.

Trewin Restorick, founder and chief executive of the environmental charity Hubbub — which is helping deliver major food waste projects across the country, “Seeing food waste grow again is massively disappointing and should be a wake-up call for efforts to be redoubled.”

We’re calling on all businesses in Euston to unite together and fight against food waste!

We have partnered up with Hubbub, and they will create imaginative, playful and passionate environmental campaigns aimed at businesses in Euston. We will host workshops with them around sustainable living, food waste and clothes recycling that are underpinned by a climate change and air quality agenda. In those sessions we will be able to have free conversations about the context of our Euston Green Link project, get feedback from local people and answer their questions, whilst addressing the increasing problem of food waste! We’re really looking forward to seeing what they come up with…