How much do you throw away?

Question

every household throws approx £8 worth of food away every week, how much do you throw away and do you have any tips to do with what some people throw!

Answer 1

Well we were at TESCO  this weekend and a guy who works there had a huge trolley full to dump with only slight package damage to it.  This is not a dig at Tesco as I admire them but a terrible waste of food all the same.

Answer 2

My husband and I live in the United States, and we "live" on Social Security benefits. We do not "throw away" any food. Anything "left over" from one meal is stored in the refrigerator, and eaten again--maybe not the next day; but, within two or three days.

Our parents were young children during the "depression" years in the United States. They learned to value whatever food they had. My mother was one of 12 children. They hunted squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, opossom for food. They were fortunate to live on a farm and had chickens, hogs, and milk cows. They bartered eggs and cream to their neighbors for flour, sugar, and salt. My mother and her seven sisters had eight pair of underwear, which they washed every night to have clean underwear to wear to school each day. They threw nothing away; and, to this day, the three sisters my mother still has living, throw nothing away.

My mother mends the holes in bed sheets. She saves plastic wrap from meats and vegetable packages she buys at the store. She saves the styrofoam cups any of her children bring into her house. She saves every container, glass or plastic, that she empties. She saves the rubber bands and plastic wrappers from her newspaper!

Anytime I have to throw food away because it has been in the refrigerator too long, and I am afraid to eat it, I think of every person who may be hungry, digging in garbage just to survive.

I cannot police everyone's kitchen; but, I ask everyone to think twice before throwing away food. If you throw food away, consider contributing at least 24 pounds to a food kitchen, or your church, or just give some homeless person on the street some money for food.

Answer 3

Admittedly we do throw bits and bobs away- gone off milk, the crusts of bread etc. We don't throw £8 worth because there are only 2 of us but we could do better I suppose.

We would have a compost heap (I used to in my old house) but I live in  a flat with no garden.

Answer 4

None. I always make sure I use what I buy before I get more.

Answer 5

Like Busy Bee (until Friday when my dog died) he had a lot of the leftovers. Other than that we have a separate recycling bin for waste food which is collected on a weeky basis.

Other than that the best tip is to just buy what you need and don't buy things just because they are on offer.

Answer 6

Gordon Brown is a t**t.  Maybe he should take another look at his stupid biofuel idea, using food to put in the petrol tank.  I wonder how much hunger he is causing in developing nations buying up their staple foods at inflated prices to refine into fuel.  He's such a moron he makes me want to puke.  Incidently, we waste liitle to no food.  The majority of our trash comes from packaging.

Answer 7

Just egg shells, truly.

We often cook curries, casseroles, soups etc. & we make enough to put some in the freezer.

If we have extra, we either share it with an old pensioner across the road, or we have the left-overs for lunch the next day.

I was brought up to not waste food.

Answer 8

Hardly anything.  Use leftovers to make another meal and keep an eye on the use by date on things and if you are not going to eat it before this date then freeze and use at a later date.

Answer 9

Started being a Freegan in small ways and it seems to have grown to not being able to throw easily at all.  

You can save a lot of money by not spending it and therefore you can be more generous to those who genuinely need it.

Answer 10

More than I'd like, but we're getting better all the time and very conscious of wasting food these days.

Answer 11

my moms a tree hugger, so we throw away maybe 1 small container of trash each week. Keep in mind we are a family of five. everything else either goes in compost or recycling.

Answer 12

we throw a lot away because my husband buys to many vegetables vand salad bits....we only eat broccoli, lettuce, carrots, peas, spring onions and peppers but he WILL buy cabbage and similar that no one likes!

Answer 13

Well once again according to Brown it is all our fault.  Now we throw away too much food and should live like our grandparents did after the WW2.

How about he stops blaming the innocent inhabitants of this country for all the worlds troubles.  All we ever did is follow governement policy for the last 40 yrs.  Does he think most people live like royalty in this country.

Hard working people trying to bring up honest families in the country are paying for the price of years economic mismangement and this has been compounded by his own idiot policies.

I am a hard working self empoyed father of 2 and i want to tell him where to shove his £8 per week.

I dont want to pay for scroungers.

  I dont want to pay more for petrol because of some idiot isrealli.

I dont want to pay more for electricity and gas because the government sold off our distributors and them failed to invest in supply.

Food distribution in this world cannot be determined by my actions.

STOP BLAMING ME BROWN.  IT IS THE FAULT OF LEADERS LIKE YOU.

Answer 14

I throw away absolutely nothing except banana skins, orange/grapefruit peels, a tiny sliver of cabbage root. These are burnt on the fire (in the kitchen) Stale bread is toasted or make breadcrumbs with. Celery stalks are put in pot of water so that I can pick the growing leaves for flavouring foods. Stale cakes (if there's any left!) I make custard and pour on it. I cook potatoes in there skins. Maybe I throw carrot/onion peelings out. I was raised not to waste anything, food or otherwise. If potatoes grow shoots, I cut them in half and rub them up the chimney to get sooted and plant in the garden and in a few months I have a couple of pounds of spuds.

Answer 15

Two waste cans on the curb each week

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And I go to the bathroom three times a day after eating

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And I go to the bathroom when ever it is ready to empty the bladder I don't keep records of that one

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This is my waste pile each week

... .. .. ...

Answer 16

Gordon Brown has seriously pissed me off this morning by saying that.

Its OK for him and his 20 grand a year allowance for food, or whatever it is.

I throw nothing away, I cant afford to, so would he like to offer me any more 'tips'??

Answer 17

Not a lot.The dog tends to be my bin :)

Answer 18

nothing is wasted in our house.any left overs goes towards another meal.

Answer 19

No i don't waste much food because i feel guilty about it, i tend to buy lesser quantities now instead.

Answer 20

Not me, I finish any leftovers and usually shop once a week..

Answer 21

aww u r right. here in kuwiati ppl cook food for 50 ppl n only 10 ppl eat n rest in bin :(

feel very sad for it

Answer 22

Very little