A Third Of All Food Is Destined For The Bin

Britain throws away a staggering £8 billion worth of food every year - a third of everything we buy, according to campaigners.

We throw away a whopping 6.7 million tonnes of food from our homes a year, according the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

And most of the grub we dump could have been eaten, experts said.

That's the equivalent of waste needed to fill Wembley Stadium eight times over and it means for every three bags of shopping brought home, one in effect ends up in land fills.

Experts said too much food was being thrown away because consumers let it go off in the fridge or cupboard, - or portions are too big and leftovers are just binned.

And that's just the amount thrown away by households - with the figure likely to be much higher when food wasted by businesses is included.

WRAP said most of the waste was edible - not just peelings and bones - and estimate that if the squandering ended it would save 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is the equivalent to taking one in five cars off the road.

It comes after a Christmas period in which it was estimated the amount of food wasted soared by 80 per cent - with 230,000 tonnes of food - worth around £275 million - thrown away.

But a poll found nine in ten people don't have a clue how much they throw away.

As well as the cost, the wasted food is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases in the UK. Most of the food thrown away ends up in landfill where it produces methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.

And campaigners say energy used to produce, package, transport and deliver the food to our homes produces the equivalent of at least 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

WRAP have launched a campaign - Love Food Hate Waste - in an attempt to raise awareness about just how much food Brits waste, with a website giving advice on how to be more food efficient.

Richard Swannell, director of retail and organics programmes at WRAP, said food wastage was a "very major problem" - with financial and environmental implications.

He said: "The food being wasted is at a cost of £8 billion - we throw away 6.7 million tonnes, and most of that could have been eaten.

"So if we ate it all we would save a staggering amount, and reduce our impact on the environment."

Mr Swannell said nearly all ages and social classes were culpable, apart from some people over 60.

He added said the causes of the problem could be put into two categories, saying: "First, we let too much food go off in the fridge and in the cupboard.

"And the other is we cook too much food and don't get portioning right, so people get full up and leave stuff on their plates and it goes in the bin."

But Mr Swannell admitted they faced a difficult task getting the message about wastage across as so much of the country was in the dark about the problem.

He said: "There is a huge mountain to climb in terms of doing this. But you could make a big difference.

"The important thing is we are doing this day by day and it is costing us a lot of cash. One of the easiest things people can do to help the environment is throw away less food.

"It's not just for us, it's for our children."