Cutting food waste could save Londoners 79m

London councils could help residents to achieve savings of up to 79 million by reducing food waste, evaluation of a recent food waste prevention campaign in West London has suggested.

According to the campaign organisers, the six month Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) campaign saw households in West London cut their food waste by some 14%, which if achieved over a twelve month period would save the West London local authorities up to 1.3 million in food waste disposal costs.

However, an element of uncertainty surrounds the results, because they are based on a sample of households and the fact that the households surveyed are likely to have cut their food waste more than others.

In some parts of West London, there was little awareness of the campaign while some boroughs do not collect food waste separately.

Upper limit

WRAP itself warned the results could be seen as an upper limit on the impact of the campaign, because “the act of being interviewed has an influence on behaviours and waste levels.”

The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which carried out the assessment, claimed that around 8 could be saved for every 1 spent implementing the campaign.

WRAP calculates that if the 14% reduction was scaled up to include London as a whole, 29,400 tonnes of food waste could be avoided, with a 79 million saving to residents.

The disposal charge for West London during the period of the campaign was 93 per tonne. Now, said WRAP, current disposal charge is 106.50 and the higher figure has been used to calculate the savings.

The LFHW West London drive, which promoted the message You could save up to 50 per month by throwing away less food, ran from October 2012 to March 2013.

The total campaign cost, which included media activity and volunteer work with funding from Recycle for London and the West London Waste Authority, cost 168,472 and involved the boroughs of Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hownslow, Richmond, and Brent.

Costly

WRAP’s director of sustainable food systems Dr Richard Swannell said: The Local Government Association (LGA) has identified waste disposal as one of the most costly areas for local authorities. Our work highlights one way these can be reduced cost effectively a short term investment can deliver short term and potentially long term gain, both financially and environmentally.

He added: And its not just local authorities who can help consumers reduce their food waste and reap the benefits. Retailers and brands have a role to play, particularly through the Courtauld Commitment and by utilising WRAPs technical guidance, to help consumers make the best use of the food they buy.

WRAP has also helped make it easier for local authorities to deliver cost effective help to residents through its food waste prevention and collections guidance, which was issued last month.

Benefits

Matthew Pencharz, senior adviser at Environment and Energy, Greater London Authority, said: Reducing the amount of waste Londoners produce in the first place achieves the greatest cost saving and environmental benefits. The LFHW activity in West London demonstrates considerable savings to households and local authorities can be made by taking really simple steps like making better informed purchasing habits and turning left over food into tasty new meals.

In the UK, some 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink is thrown away each year, 4.4 million tonnes of which is edible. In London, approximately 890,000 tonnes of food is waste, of which 540,000 tonnes could be avoided. It costs London boroughs more than 50 million per year to dispose of food waste collected from households (excluding waste which is disposed in sewers and home-composted).