Food waste: are you throwing your money in the bin?
The cost of living crisis means many Britons are desperately casting around for ways to save money this winter. Yet each year the average family throws away more than £700 of perfectly good food – so could tackling this waste be a win-win for you and the environment?
“You are literally throwing money in the bin by wasting food,” says Helen White, Wrap’s special adviser for household food waste. The charity, which works to reduce waste and promote efficient use of resources, estimates that a family with children could save £730 a year on average by not binning food. “That money could come into very sharp focus as we move further into this year,” White says.
The annual financial cost of these uneaten meals is of a similar magnitude to the predicted step up in gas and electricity bills when the government’s energy price cap is reset in April.
Households are already under financial pressure, with official data for December showing inflation at a near 30-year high of 5.4%, driven by the higher cost of clothes, food and footwear. The upward march of food prices – milk, for example, costs 8% more than a year ago, while margarine is up by a massive 27% – makes avoiding waste even more critical.
The £730 figure is based on Wrap’s most recent food waste data, which estimates that an average family with children bins 244kg of food, or 580 meals, each year. For an individual, the estimated waste figure is 69kg, which adds up to £210.
In total, Britons throw away 6.6m tonnes of food a year, of which 4.5m tonnes, worth £14bn, is edible. This waste is bad for the planet because about a third of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are associated with our food and drink.
“It isn’t just a glass of milk, slice of bread or potato that you are
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