Food waste campaign supports residents in saving up to £720 a year

A campaign to reduce the amount of food thrown away unnecessarily – saving up to £720 a year – is offering residents in Three Rivers the chance to win a free meal out if they take part.

Three Rivers District Council is leading a pilot of the #WorthSaving campaign which aims to tackle the issue of avoidable food waste by encouraging residents to follow  4 Steps to Save  food waste and save money by developing better habits.

By signing up to receive hints and tips on making the most of your food via email for five weeks and taking part in two quick surveys, residents could win a cooking experience and meal out, paid for by WasteAware - the partnership of county, district and borough councils working together to reduce, reuse and recycle Hertfordshire's waste.

The campaign follows a study in 2020 by the Hertfordshire Waste Partnership which showed that around 24% of the rubbish in Hertfordshire’s refuse bins was made up of food that could have been eaten.

Cllr Phil Williams, the council's Lead Member for Environmental Services, Climate Change and Sustainability said: "At a time when household budgets are being stretched by rising costs of living, including the increasing costs of food, it’s more important than ever to reduce the food we throw away. On top of rising living costs, we continue to receive stark warnings and local examples of what the climate crisis will mean for us all. Reducing your food waste is a really simple, cost saving way to live more sustainably and help us reach out net-zero targets”.

Wasting food has a huge impact on the environment, wasting all of the land, fertiliser, transport, water, and more needed to grow the food, with wasted edible food generating around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

By following WasteAware’s simple  4 Steps to Save  on the #WorthSaving website, residents can find lots of simple tips to reduce food waste at home.

To find out more and enter the prize draw, visit www.wasteaware.org.uk/worthsaving . You’ll receive weekly hints and guidance on how to reduce your food waste over the course of five weeks.

4 Steps To Save

Plan – check what you have

• Stock check
• Plan your meals
• Write a shopping list

Shop – buy what you need

• Avoid impulse buys
• Stick to your list
• Don’t shop when you’re hungry
• Substitutes - food item swaps when a store doesn’t have the item you need for a recipe

Store – in the best way

• Dates and labels
• How to correctly store food (right place for each food item)
• Fridge / freezer temp
• How to safely freeze and defrost food

Eat – what you have

• Choose to eat / cook with ripe food first
• Portion sizes
• Freeze excess food for later
• Eat your leftovers
• Use-up night
• Recipes for spare ingredients
• Batch cooking