Quarter of all UK food bought is thrown away

In these times of financial downturn and dwindling natural resources, the phrase "waste not, want not" has never been more relevant. Yet, according to a new book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, the United Kingdom throws away 5.4m tonnes of "avoidable food waste" per year.

According to the author Tristram Stuart, food waste is the big unspoken environmental crisis of our times. Whilst the likes of global warming and deforestation might be at the forefront of the public consciousness, food wastage is something everyone is guilty of. Whether it is throwing out an uneaten, and now mouldy, loaf of bread or a shrivelled banana, the fact of the matter is that if we didn't waste so much food, there would be more available to feed those currently starving in the world.

Speaking to The Guardian, Stuart lays down the main solution; "if we waste less food, we'll need less land to grow it on, and hence will cut down fewer trees; we'll use less water to irrigate that land and less carbon to transport and process the food it produces."

A 2008 study revealed that the nation throws away approximately 5.4m tonnes of food waste per year (in individual terms - 1.6bn untouched apples (or 27 per person) and 2.6bn slices of bread), but it's not just us consumers that are responsible for these huge levels of waste. Huge amounts of food are wasted immediately after harvesting, especially in developing countries, where poor transport and other infrastructure problems mean that food often perishes before it gets to market.

However, one of the largest sources of wasted food is currently supermarkets and shops. In the United States of America, unwanted stock is redistributed to homeless shelters and food banks where the less fortunate can receive food for free. In this country, such a scheme has yet to take on. Supermarkets are not obliged to disclose how much food they throw away, but according to data obtained by the Environment Agency, it is approximately 1.6 million tonnes per year. However, because of the limited nature of the information, this figure may be much higher.

This is slowly starting to change with several high profile stores (such as Pret A Manger) now donating a certain amount of their unsold stock to homeless charities, but the fact remains that if we as consumers didn't buy so much, we wouldn't throw so much away.

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