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Food: Waste or Waist

Posted by Tony Hitchens on March 12, 2008 2:23 PM | 

A third of the food we buy in the UK ends up being thrown away.
6.7 million tonnes of food every year – some of it is peel, cores and bones – stuff you can’t eat.
But the majority is or started out as perfectly good food.
What is so bad about throwing away food – it rots down doesn’t it?

Yes it does, but it will rot down inside a landfill. Inside the landfill the microbes that break the food down cannot get enough air so they start to produce methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas (21 times for powerful as a greenhouse gas that carbon dioxide).

People that operate landfills capture some of this gas and use it to make electricity. Premier alone produces six megawatts of electricity per year from landfill gas. However, some escapes to the atmosphere helping to accelerate global warming; methane is about 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide.

This is different than putting your peelings into a compost bin or green waste collection service – here the green waste is composted and the does not produce methane – instead you get some carbon dioxide (the microbes breath this out) and compost that helps to feed the soil.

As part of the WRAP programme to cut down on food waste they recommend measuring out correct portions size and reusing leftovers to cut down on the food thrown away.

By cooking the right amount you do not overeat and you do not end up throwing food away.

See www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for more advice on cooking the right amount of food and recipes from WRAP.

Comments (1)

Rob Whittle wrote...

Tony

You are absolutely correct to raise this obvious "elephant in the corner" issue of food waste. It is crimnal we waste so much. It is criminal that most ends up in landfill in mixed waste, giving off climate change and potent methane. It is criminal that a large part of this waste will end up being burnt (and lost as an organic fertiliser) in the future.

After minimising and reusing food waste there is a fantastic alternative solution. One sorts the waste food out and gets it collected weekly in 70 litre kitchen caddy. A small 2-3T dunmper truck (maybe methane powered) is used that is nippy and candies quikely emptied by hand. It then gets treated locally in tanks like sewage. This process is called Anaerobic digestion at 50C or 70C with baterial producing methane that can be used for vehicles or used to make local decentralised electricity. The organic residual is aerated and made into PAS 100 quality compost that can be spread safely on local fields or sold as amenity compost (peat substitute) giving farmland and soil better and more sustainable fertility. Voila, Food Waste totally recycled, no incinerator, landfill solved for food waste.

Oh and "weekly" collections to get rid of problem waste that might niff a bit in the summer months under fortnightly collections. Also there is more space left in the other bids, so less chance of overflowing, lid up or side waste that councils don't like.

Posted by: Rob Whittle  | March 14, 2008 7:25 PM

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