BCP Council is to expand on the work begun by Bournemouth Council by trying to reduce food waste across the conurbation.
By 2015, Bournemouth Council had expanded their food waste collection services to 60,000 homes in an attempt to reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill.
Tackling food waste is a challenge faced by many local councils, not least because food waste going to landfill can attract animals including birds to hazardous sites where they can then consume plastics and other dangerous materials.
In Bournemouth – as of 2015 – we are producing more waste than ever before, 498kg per household per year, and disappointingly less of this is being recycled than then 10 years ago. 50% of waste was recycled in 2009 compared to 47% today.
In an attempt to address this, BCP Council is now working with GetComposting to offer compost converters to residents for £18.50; it is estimated that each composter would prevent 150kg of waste per household from going to landfill.
Worldwide the impact of food waste is colossal, with organic waste that is sent to landfill producing enormous amounts of methane – an environmentally damaging chemical.
Natural resources wasted in producing unwanted food
How much water do you think is used to produce 1kg of beef? Many would be surprised to learn that it takes 15,000 litres*!
Throwing the beef away renders the use of that much water irrelevant; further to this around 30-50% of food produced every year worldwide is lost before reaching a human stomach*.
In an attempt to help address this root cause of food waste the council are also working with Love Food Hate Waste to advertise a selection of recipes that use up the common types of food that is wasted when cooking.
Visit the website for some recipes.
*These figures are sourced from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ Food Waste Report.