Every year in the UK we throw away 4.5 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten. The impact that this food wastage has on the environment is huge.

The food that goes to landfill releases methane as it biodegrades and this gas is 34 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

When food is wasted, so are all of the resources that have gone into its production including land, water, transport and energy. So the real cost of our food wastage is even bigger than we realise.

Just one quarter of all our globally wasted food could feed the 795 million undernourished people around the world suffering from hunger. We can all make small changes to our daily life to help reduce our impact on the planet.

Bananas

Your Challenge: Invent a Recipe!

  1. Look in your fridge and cupboards and choose some unusual combos that you think just might work. The more adventurous the better.
  2. Do you have a recipe that could use this food? If not, have a look online for recipes with your chosen foods in them e.g. bread is great for making croutons in soup, spinach can be used in a curry, bruised fruit is great for smoothies, and brown bananas are great for banana bread. 
  3. Once you’ve chosen your recipe, do your preparing, cooking or baking and share a photo of the finished dish and a creative recipe name with your team and post on Twitter or Facebook using #groundworkecochallenge.

For further information and to download a helpful food waste guide to continue your journey, visit: http://resources.trifocal.eu.com/resources/

Going forward, you can try to stick to these food waste pledges in your household:

  1. I pledge to check my fridge more often and freeze food before it goes off.
  2. I pledge to use the First In First Out (FIFO) method and create a shelf in my fridge or cupboard for opened food or food that is close to its use by date and use that food first.
  3. I pledge to use leftovers in recipes.
Leftover dish

Eco-challenge competition

Post a photo on Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #groundworkecochallenge or email us at ecochallenge@groundwork.org.uk showing us your completed challenges.

What Groundwork is doing

Small Change Big Difference

Groundwork runs campaigns and projects in schools and communities actively promote healthy and sustainable eating, while reducing food waste and increasing food recycling.


Across London over the last 2 years, and in partnership with WRAP, we have worked with 8000 pupils in 24 schools as well as 1700 people across 100 different community groups. We run food waste workshops, training, and events to teach, inspire and empower people how to get the best out of their food and how to limit the amount of food they might be wasting. 

Cook Together Eat Together

Through our Cook Together Eat Together programme we provide residents across the West Midlands with free healthy cooking courses which centre around developing cooking skills, understanding healthy eating and building confidence in cooking meals from scratch on a budget.

Not only do our courses bring people together but they also help people to learn recipes and meal plan meaning that they are buying and using ingredients that they need to make healthy budget meals and reducing food waste.

Group from Cook Together Eat Together Course