WORDS LAURA POTTER
Get ready for some rubbish news: UK households bin £13 billion worth of food that could have been eaten, every year – £470 per house. Falling food prices and rising incomes since 2014 haven’t helped, as it gives us less incentive to cut food waste. The food industry’s also to blame – failing commitments to cut food waste by five per cent between 2012 and 2015, and UK restaurants chuck out 210,000 tonnes of food annually. Yet the focus seems to be on us, not big business. ‘Ironically, while policy changes at supermarkets would cut vast swathes of waste, we hear more about how busy parents need to cook less rice,’ says Carina Millstone, executive director at Feedback, an environmental organisation campaigning to end food waste at every level. ‘Household waste has fallen 21 per cent since 2007; we’d see greater reductions if shoppers believed supermarkets were doing everything they could to tackle waste.’