Warwickshire Reduces – Food waste and climate change

Getting food on our plates requires water, energy and transportation.  If the food you buy isn’t eaten, it’s a waste of all those resources. It takes 65 billion litres of water to grow the potatoes we waste at home every year.

But it’s an easier way to take action against climate change by making small changes.

But what can you do more specifically to make a change?  We are all busy so choose one simple food hack to try today – doing one thing different really does make a huge difference. Then keep doing this action every week until it becomes second nature. Then try something else.

In a few weeks, you’ll be surprised at how much food you’re saving from the bin!  And how many more £s you have in your pocket too – in fact, the average family can save around £60 a month, that’s a whopping £720 a year.

Supermarkets often have great recipes and meal plans on their websites to help you.  We have a link to the Tesco page but most supermarkets have something similar.  There are also apps available, such as Kitche which help you plan meals and keep track of what is in your cupboards.

1. Store it correctly – allow the food to cool to room temperature before placing it in the fridge and eat within two days.  Your fridge should be 5 degrees C or below.

2. Defrost food in the fridge.

3.  Reheat thoroughly.  It should be piping hot which is around 60 degrees C.

It’s tempting to think of our food waste as organic, the kind that decomposes back into the soil. If you can compost peelings, eggshells and apple cores to enrich your garden – and eat everything else that can be eaten – then that’s a great start. But much of our food waste doesn’t end up that way or can’t be composted at home.

Bones, meat and dairy can be composted in a hot compost bin (also called Green Johanna) which composts to a very high temperature.  If you don’t have a hot bin it’s important that you keep these items out of the compost and place in the green kerbside bin, if available.