Opinion Published on 17 Jul, 2009
Richard Hall
Food waste
Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International.
Everyone talks about packaging waste despite its value in preserving food. Hardly anyone talks about food waste despite its potentially greater consequences. Until now.
A new book – Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart – refines earlier research to calculate the amount we throw away in Britain, including:
- 1.6 billion apples a year, 27 per person
- 484 million unopened yogurts
- 2.6 billion slices of bread
- £6 worth of bananas each.
It all adds up to one quarter of our total purchases, around 5.4 million tonnes – yes, 5,400,000,000kg.
Just as with diet, obesity, exercise and health, we should start practising what we are preached.