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Food waste totals £10bn a year

08/05/2008

UK households throw away £10 billion in wasted food away a year, according to a new report.

Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) found the average household throws out £420 of good food a year. For the average family with children, it's higher at £610.

Wrap claims a third of all food bought is thrown away and more than half of that is not even past its sell-by date.

Local authorities spend £1 billion a year to dispose of food waste.

Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP, said: "What shocked me the most was the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings.

"It highlights that this is an economic and social issue, as well as about how much we understand the value of our food.

"Tackling the problem of food waste will be at the heart of WRAP's work over the next three years."

Each day 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots, 5,500 whole chickens and 440,000 ready meals are thrown away in the UK, the report said.

Environment minister Joan Ruddock said: "These findings are staggering in their own right, but at a time when global food shortages are in the headlines this kind of wastefulness becomes even more shocking."

Stopping the waste of good food could avoid 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from being emitted each year – the same as taking one in five cars off of UK roads, Wrap said.