Reducing Household Food Waste

[gmetcalfehume]

I am a level 3 Product Designer at the University of Leeds and for my final year project my focus is on reducing household food waste.
This is a very concerning issue with approximately 60% of household food waste arising from products that are ‘not used in time’, which equates to £6.7 Billion of money wasted. A staggering a staggering 30 to 50% of food produced around the world ends up in landfill.

Therefore, I would greatly appreciate 5 minutes of your time to complete the survey by clicking on the link below.

www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y73676L

Any other comments and thoughts on the topic are very welcome.

Thank you

I've done the survey. I too am very aware of waste and am appalled by the amount people throw away. In fact I often visit my mother and take food she'll be throwing away- bread if it's been open a day, the remains (legs, thighs and wings of a chicken) of a Sunday dinner, potatoes which have green bits (she leaves them in the sun, of course they have green bits!)

But I do think that shops and supermarkets over packaging is a bigger problem. In a lot of cases if stuff, lets say, carrots weren't over packaged and cheaper in the packets people wouldn't buy more than they need, there wouldn't be as much food waste, and the plastic wouldn't join the landfill either. Shops make it deliberately more difficult to buy singular- even those things you can buy, the costs aren't clear and there are no scales which makes budgeting difficult, when you have your three carrots in a paper bag (though they're usually the plastic ones, but can be reused), not knowing the cost before you pay, it takes ten minutes for the check out lady to find the code, with a lot of huffing and puffing at that. It's contributing to both food waste and unnecessary plastic waste and should be addressed.

I've done the survey too. I think something that would help is getting over the idea of the big 'weekly shop'. It's very easy to end up buying too much food that way. I plan all our meals for the week ahead, but shop little and often to accommodate any unforeseen changes that need to be made

Done!

Mrs- that's a good point- when I was young I would do a shop every Friday, because it was my day off and my mum had always done a weekly shop. It was only when I left my first flat that I found I had been hoarding food, excessively, and what Id been buying fresh ( not much as a student I lived on noodles, pasta and oven fish and chips) I would have been throwing out without noticing I was doing it there were three blocks of butter when I left- two rancid .

Done. I try and do a fortnightly shop with meat/dairy top ups when necessary. We have a good butcher locally so this helps. Veg box once a fortnight and milk via the milkman, more expensive than supermarkets but I like milk in bottles, it's traditional and helps the environment. Hardly throw any food out, other than bones and peelings. If i do it's cream or soft cheese not finished up and gone mouldy.

Agree with pregnant that packaging needs addressing urgently. Yes we can recycle lots of it now but there is still far too much.

Firstly, I apologise for the late reply, I have been busy developing concepts to tackle the household food waste problem.

Therefore, I would appreciate some thoughts on the following concepts. For example, what you like and don't like about them; and if there are any improvements that you think would be beneficial.

Copy and paste links into address bar:

www.dropbox.com/s/stelmspcucmls96/Mumsnet%20Improve%20overall%20storage.pdf

www.dropbox.com/s/x1nuvg0rk3s8f9l/Mumsnet%20Prevent%20Cooking%20Too%20Much.pdf

Thank you

Guy

Done