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The average family throws out £610 of perfectly good food every year
Last updated at 00:37am on 09.05.08The average family throws £610 of perfectly good food away each year, adding up to £10billion of waste across the country.
The food being binned would fill Wembley Stadium eight times over and costs £2billion more than previous estimates, according to official figures released today.
Sixty per cent of the dumped food, worth £6billion, has never been used or even touched, according to the Government's waste reduction experts on the WRAP body, who compiled the figures.
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Waste: £10 billion-worth of food is thrown out in Britain every year
Environment Minister Joan Ruddock said the the figures were "staggering", particularly as consumers are struggling to meet rising food bills. WRAP claims we throw away 6.7million tons of food each year, most of which could have been eaten.
Its report, titled The Food We Waste, also suggests that up to £1billion of it is still in date when it is tossed out.
The WRAP figures have been questioned, with suggestions that much of the food waste is bones and peelings.
But a WRAP spokesman described the waste as "good food".
The figures are based on a survey of the bins of more than 2,100 homes and interviews with householders.
The Government has given WRAP, which claims its study is the most comprehensive of its kind, the task of reducing food and packaging waste.
WRAP said huge amounts of energy are wasted in producing and transporting food that is never eaten.
Most of the dumped food reaches sites where it emits the greenhouse-gas methane.
"The carbon impact of food waste is enormous," WRAP said. "Tackling it would provide a carbon benefit equivalent to taking one in five cars off UK roads."
Dealing with the waste also costs local councils £1billion a year.
Supermarkets have been criticised for encouraging waste with BOGOF - buy one get one free - deals.
A study, however, has found that stores have dramatically reduced the availability of these offers this year.
Mrs Ruddock said consumers paid for the waste three times over. "Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they don't eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates. And there are climate change costs to all of us," she added.
WRAP chief executive Liz Goodwin said: "Food waste has a significant environmental impact. This research confirms that it is an issue for us all."
Reader views (3)
Food was wasted during the period of ‘cheap food’.
As we’re all now well aware, food prices are rising rapidly and the era of cheap food is probably gone forever.
Ergo - the problem of food being thrown away will solve itself - as people will no longer be able to afford to throw good food away.
- Sean Dunne, Louth UK
How mad are we? Biofuels are grown to feed cars whilst 2 billion people go hungry, then prices rise so what do we do, we throw away a third of food uneaten which in it's turn is 'costing' the Earth to produce in finite energy sources. Is it me or am I missing something?
- Philip, London UK
While the effects on planet earth of waste and gluttony, are felt in jobs for 'aid' workers in places like Burma.
- Jack, London
