Waste: Dishing the dirt

Wasting food is costly, damages the environment and, in a world where a billion people are hungry, deeply unfair. But is simply cutting food waste enough to tackle these problems?

Writing in our magazine, experts in waste management and redistribution, recycling and redesign analyse the problems associated with food waste, and offer creative and workable solutions.

They find that:

• Every household in the UK wastes between £250 and £400 of food per year
• Avoidable waste of cereal-based food in the UK and USA could lift 224 million people out of hunger
• Around 7 million tonnes of food ends up in landfill in the UK every year
• Producing and distributing edible food that goes to waste accounts for around 5% of all UK GHG emissions
• An estimated £858 million could be saved a year by no- or low-cost efficiencies in waste reduction in UK food and drink manufacturing

Tom MacMillan, executive director of the Food Ethics Council says:

“Food waste is harmful and unfair, and it is essential to stop food going into landfill.

But the irony is that consumption growth and persistent inequalities look set to undo the good that cutting food waste does in reducing our overall use of natural resources and improving food security.

Now is the moment all parties should be searching out ways to define prosperity that get away from runaway consumption. Until they succeed, chucking out less food won’t make our lifestyles more sustainable.”

Contributors to the magazine include Charlotte Henderson from WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) on working with retailers and manufacturers, Tony Lowe from FareShare on food redistribution, Tristram Stuart, author of ‘Waste: uncovering the global food scandal’, on the links between the food we waste and global hunger, and the British Retail Consortium’s Andrew Opie on sell-by labels.

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Contents
What's wrong with waste | From the editor

Introduction
The bread we waste | David and Leslie Wilson
Perishing possessions | Tristram Stuart

Research
America's relationship with food and its waste | Timothy Jones
Spilling the beans | Annabel Townsend

The big question
What's in your bin?
Andrew Opie | Terri O'Neale | Sue Dibb | Jon Cossham | Paul Bettison | Jane Bickerstaffe | Julia Hailes | Richard Taylor | Jilly Stephens | Peter Jones

Technology
Re-packaging the recycling debate | Julie Hill
Tackling food and packaging waste | Charlotte Henderson
Cradle to cradle | Michele Field and Michael Braungart

Community
One planet living | Jane Hershey
No good food should be wasted | Tony Lowe

Policy
Averting the environmental food crisis | Achim Steiner
Wasted food, lost water | Charlotte De Fraiture and Terry Clayton

Regular features
Book reviews
Restaurant review | Jane Carlton-Smith