Did you Know?
- When food is wasted, all the resources used in bringing that food to our tables are wasted too.
- In Ireland, we produce around 1 million tonnes of food waste each year and of this amount, Irish households generate 250,000 tonnes.
- The average Irish household throws out 150kg of food each year and a significant amount of this food is still suitable for human consumption.
- By making small changes to how we manage our food each day, we can make a big difference to our overall food waste and help our nation’s goal to cut our climate emissions in half by 2030.
Why is this important?
- Food waste is a significant contributor to climate change, generating around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Growing, processing and transporting food all use significant amounts of resources (land, water and energy).
- Throwing out food is a waste of money. The average Irish household can save around €700 a year by avoiding food waste.
- Globally, more than one-quarter of food produced is wasted each year and this is deeply unethical – so much food is thrown away while so many people can’t afford to eat.
What can I do?
- Keep an eye out for the most common reasons that we waste food: buying too much, preparing too much or allowing leftovers to go off in the fridge.
- Find out what food you waste and why: Separate your food waste out from other items you throw in the bin for a period of two weeks and keep a record of it – you can use the stopfoodwaste.ie sheet (linked below) to do this.
- Once you know what foods you are wasting the most and the reasons why, you can identify simple actions you can take to avoid this.
- Find out more on how to manage your food better through keeping an eye on your shopping, storage and cooking on www.stopfoodwaste.ie
For More Information
https://stopfoodwaste.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/recording-sheet.pdf
Weekly Food Waste Recording Sheet – Keep track of your food waste to learn what goes to waste most often.
https://stopfoodwaste.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SFW-Pocket-Guide-2.pdf
STOP FOOD WASTE Pocket Guide – an all you ‘need-to-know’ easy guide to help you reduce household food waste.
https://stopfoodwaste.ie/shopping-and-storage/five-ways-to-reduce-food-waste
Five Ways to Reduce Food Waste – five top actions to start reducing food waste today.
https://stopfoodwaste.ie/shopping-and-storage/reducing-food-waste-lessons-from-a-no-spend-year
Reducing Food Waste: Lessons from a No Spend Year – read about Mrs Smart Money’s experiences of Stop Food Waste.
