How Much Food Are You Throwing Away?

• kid_icarus
  May 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

  not that food waste is good, but she could vermi compost A LOT of what she was throwing out…

• Angstrom
  May 9th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

  I don’t throw much away, but I know who does.

  I was in our local supermarket late at night, about to buy some bread from the ‘bakery’ stand, but an employee was standing there. Thinking he may be about to price it down I waited while he did his thing.
  To my surprise he swept about 30 loaves, 40 bagels, 40 buns, 30 or so cream cakes, cookies, and much more … into a big big plastic sack and threw it away. The big bin was in the car park near my car so I watched that happen, it certainly wasn’t destined for a homeless shelter.

  The bread products had reached their sell-by date and so they all went in the bin. Those loaves, if I had picked on up a second sooner, would have cost me around £1. The total cost of what they throw away every day is staggering.
  And this was just a small local branch, with about 4 isles, not one of the huge places.
  Tescos, every little helps (!)

• L
  May 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

  Aside from the meat, she shouldn’t be “throwing out” most of that stuff. Compost, compost, compost!

• donna
  May 9th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

  Yup, I started a worm bin. Easy and fun, and the works love it!

  I also have a larger compost bin by the garden as well.

• Ali S.
  May 10th, 2008 at 1:20 am

  Besides the food being thrown out imagine the amount of money one spends to buy all that food at first and then not eating what you’ve bought.

• ted
  May 10th, 2008 at 6:35 am

  Been composting for years. It always amazes me to see how much garbage families will put out on the street.

• Gerry
  May 10th, 2008 at 9:08 am

  Most of the food I end up throwing away is because it is going south >before I get it home from the store<. Milk, bread and meat should not go bad within a few days of getting it home. (I have a new fridge with thermometers, so I know its not MY kitchen thats the problem.)

  I think some stores are cutting back on their refrigeration a few degrees to save money or employees are just poorly handling items.

• badburt
  May 12th, 2008 at 5:46 am

  Sell/use by dates are a load of rubbish put on food packaging by manufacturers to cover themselves. In general if food looks and smells off it generally is, otherwise it’s fine.

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