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."

Keep your Hearts Happy

Happy Hearts Need Clean Air
recent study in Denmark demonstrates the value that clean air in the home or other closed environments has on healthy heart function. In the study, cardiovascular differences were measured when participants breathed recirculated air purified with a HEPA air filter and then without the HEPA filter.Working from Copenhagen’s Institute of Public Health, Professor Steffen Loft, MD, DMSc, enlisted the help of 21 healthy couples aged from 60 to 75, all non-smokers, who lived near busy public roadways, in a two-part study.

During the first part of the study, the home of each couple was outfitted with a standard air purifier equipped with a HEPA (high efficiency particle air) filter which was allowed to operate for 48 hours. During the second part of the study, the air filter was used, again for 48 hours, but without the HEPA filter.

Measurements of each person’s MVF (microvascular function) were taken after each 48-hour period. Impaired function, or damage, to these tiny blood vessels is a known predictor of cardiovascular disease.

Continuous measurements of the air particles in the home were taken throughout both phases of the experiment. The HEPA filter removed about 60% more of the air particles, measured from coarse to ultrafine, than the air purifier did when operating without it.

Loft claims his team was “heartened and surprised” by the impressive improvement in MVF when the HEPA filter was used. Overall rate of improvement for study participants was measured at 8.1%.

Full results of the study, which indicates that the fewer the air particles in recirculated indoor air the better the MVF and thus heart health, are published in a February issue of the American journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.