For the sake of climate change ... it's time to investigate ... your food waste!

It’s time for some detective work, when did you last stop to look inside your food waste bin (urrgh!), or pay attention to what gets put in there? Detectives have to have their eyes peeled, and notice the smallest of details. This week you’ll be needing your wits about you, and your notepad to hand, can you monitor which food type is most often wasted in your house? What are the worst offenders?

Are they the last few bites from your plate that you couldn’t quite manage? Sandwich crusts? Potato peelings? Brown bananas? Something lurking at the back of the fridge that has passed its use-by date?

Your challenge this week is to weigh how much food you waste in one day or one week and note down what sort of waste you see the most of. You can use this chart if you’d like to.

Now can you think of some ways to cut this waste??? Roast potatoes with their skins on? Make breadcrumbs from your crusts? Make a banana cake with the brown bananas? Cook a meal using only leftovers? Keep a sharp detective’s eye on ‘use by’ dates. Freeze food you won’t be able to use in time – meat, fish, bread, fruit and vegetables? The LOVEFOODhatewaste campaign has a great A-Z list of tips and ideas on storing/using up excess ingredients - maybe you could make a note of this weblink and stick in on your fridge?

Remember to HIT THE RED BUTTON and tell us when you’ve completed the challenge!

Around 40% of UK food waste currently ends up in landfill, where it is broken down by bacteria that produce methane, which has a very powerful impact on climate change. Wasted food, if it was a country, would be the third largest emitter of carbon in the world – after the United States and China.

The UK Parliament is close to finalising a new law - the Environment Bill - which would require every council to collect food waste so that it can be recycled to make biogas and/or fertilizer. If you’d like to find out more about what happens to your food waste when it’s collected by your local Council – this is an excellent RecycleNow one minute video clip. But don’t forget reducing food waste is even better than recycling it!

When you have measured how much food you waste in one day or one week and thought about how you can reduce this, don’t forget to HIT THE RED BUTTON!