Armidale households are trialling a new food wastage system which will hopefully help eliminate the amount of food that ends up in landfill, because a lot of households probably buy a lot more food than they actually eat.

 

A shocking NSW statistic shows that an average of 800,000 tonnes of leftover food gets wasted each year. This wasted food ends up adding to landfills when in a lot of cases it could have been eaten if it was stored correctly or eaten before going bad.

 

Wasting food not only effects the environment though, it’s also bad on the hip pocket. It is estimated that more than $2.5 billion worth of edible food is thrown away by NSW households every year!

 

The NSW government is trying to cut down on the amount of wasted food though, by spreading the Love Food Hate Waste message.

 

To get on the Love Food Hate Waste bandwagon, there are a few simple things we can all do around the home that can help contribute to less food wastage.

 

The most obvious is only buying food that you intend to eat. This is trickier to do then it sounds though, as sometimes we buy food with every intention of eating it, only to end up throwing it out.

 

To help prevent this problem it helps to make meal plans and shopping lists, so we only buy things we know we will eat. Trying to eat all your food before you go shopping can also help reduce wastage.

 

Educating yourself about food is another idea to reduce waste. If you have set recipes in mind, and know how long you have to use your food, then you can utilise more of your food items.

 

Another tip is to improve the way that you store food. If you can make each of your food items last longer, then there is less chance that they will end up as waste. So buy containers to save things in, and keep food items in the fridge or freezer if it will help them last longer.

 

There are heaps more great tips about planning, preparing and storing your food to help reduce waste at the Love Food Hate Waste website. Check them out and do your bit to help cut down on unnecessary food waste.

A selection of Armidale households has been chosen to try out a new kind of kitchen recycling.

 

The new kitchen waste collection initiative will involve sending out specially designed vented kitchen bench top bins and compostable BioBags that will be used to help collect food scraps.

 

Two hundred homes in central Armidale have been chosen to take part in the City to Soil Initiative and next week they should notice a year’s supply of Biobags, a sticker and an instruction leaflet delivered to their home.

 

Those taking part in the trial initiative will be asked to collect their kitchen waste (items such as veggie peelings, tea bags, paper towels and food leftovers) in the bins and BioBags and then when they are full they can be tied up and placed in their green waste bins.

 

The food and garden waste from the green bins will then be taken to the Armidale Waste Transfer Station where it will be recycled into high quality compost, which will then be available for a small cost to local growers.

 

The City to Soil initiative will run as a trial to start with to see how households take up the new method of discarding waste, and to fine tune any problems before making the initiative available to everyone in Armidale. Some people may be put off by the thought of having food scraps kept on their kitchen benches, but the vented bins and compost bags have been specially designed so that they don’t contribute to bad kitchen odours.

 

It would be great if City to Soil ended up being a success, because by turning food waste into compost we can help reduce the amount of organic waste that goes into landfill and help protect the environment.

 

For those who are interested in finding out more about the Armidale City to Soil initiative, you can visit www.armidalecitytosoil.blogspot.com or the Armidale Dumaresq Council website.