Islanders waste 100 tonnes of food a week
Tuesday 8th July 2008, 2:30PM BST.
100 tonnes of food every week ends up at Mont Cuet tip, according to a Public Services report.
MORE than a third of rubbish in local dustbins is food, a Public Services report has revealed.
An audit of 200 homes’ refuse highlighted Guernsey’s wasteful approach to food, with kitchen organics making up 36% of domestic refuse.
That means that households threw out 5,206 tonnes of food, peelings and scraps last year. Deputy Public Services minister Scott Ogier said attitudes had to change.
‘We are very wasteful and that is a result of living in a society with so much to spare,’ he said. ‘The survey on Guernsey households shows there is a great deal of food waste going to Mont Cuet and we need to turn that into something useful. The Public Services Department is looking very carefully at household collections and the possibility of composting.’
Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday called on people to stop wasting food after it was revealed that the UK dumped four million tonnes every year, adding £420 to the average family’s shopping bill.
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Yum, because who really eats their peelings, how can they count this in the food waste???
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I wrote to the Minister some time a go. Mainly asking for a job to takle this problem and it is a problem getting bigger and it’s not going to go away…
I have a solution to this big problem the island has to face and it fact it’s quite simple it could even make money for the island.
Use the French way of re-cycling and if the Minister don’t know of this system which works so very well, Oh and I do know it works because I am an expat Guernsey man living in france for the passed 9 years. He should come over here and take a look at two or three of the sites there all the same.
I never did get a reply from my e-mail to the Minister but for the right inducement I would come back a run Guernsey’s site for the Island.
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This subject is related to several news items of late. The need for a co-ordinator to organise producing and distributing food locally. I suggested this years ago. Eco Plant turns waste into power – excellent idea. Is there anyone out there interested in getting together to get this off the ground?
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We have been trying to pursuade the States to allow us to build a plant for 2 years.
So far nothing.
Unfortunatly they believe incineration is the waste panacea.
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perhaps the supermarkets need to cut out the “bogof” deals and “buy two get one free offers”, they must surely be one of the biggest causes of wasted food. However, since they make a huge profit from such deals, i can’t see that happening, so perhaps it is down to the people who care about our environment to boycott such deals?
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