Hugh's War on Waste

hear hear, to both of you.

Good post Rose

Woolworths put my uncle out of business and made him bankrupt forty years ago, and it's so much worse nowadays. It would be easy to say the farmers shouldn't sell to the supermarkets but they have no real choice and can only look for the least worst deal.

We're fortunate where we live that we still have local shops and the butchers and green grocers usually match or undercut Tesco - with local produce - but the advertising hype sends many to the supermarket. Many people don't look locally - and then moan when the shops aren't there any more.

I watched the programme last night - at last!

I can't agree with the OP - I believe a lot of the problem is the attitude of the supermarkets and their competition to offer 'perfect' fruit and vegetables to the producer - and the daft customers such as the one mentioned in a post above, selecting uniformly matching carrots!
At one time the EU set out specific criteria about what fruit and vegetables should be sold so they had a lot to answer for as well - I believe the rules have been relaxed somewhat now ( but not before they put a lot of farmers out of business).

Yes, there was over-production but only because Morrisons demanded perfection and tons of perfectly good parsnips were being ploughed back in. Now the farmer has lost his contract and his livelihood - over-production at the demand of Morrisons, working at a loss or a spiteful move because they spoke to the media.
I didn't much like Morrisons attitude towards their farmers before now but I won't shop there again. Tesco screws the farmers too - the Co-op has a good relationship with their farmers but ours has closed down.

Without farmers there would be no food at all in the shops. People take for granted where their food comes from - in fact, looking at all the unwanted items thrown out in just one street (not recycled or taken to a charity shop) it amazes me that there is a thread on 'poverty' in Britain today.
The waste of food and perfectly good items was just unbelievable.
We should be ashamed when people are starving in this world.

crun would you like to work for a boss who set out impossibly high standards for your work then took money from you instead of paying you? Because that is what some of the contracts amount to which farmers have with the bullying supermarkets.

Asda have been selling some misshapen veg for a while now, I wonder why so few branches though? I think I have heard, somewhere, that the trials have gone well.
your.asda.com/news-and-blogs/we-re-trialling-wonky-veg-to-cut-food-waste-with-the-help-of-jamie-oliver

I would like a tour of one of these recycling plants.

When I have bought parsnips from ASDA theyr seem to come in all shapes and sizes.

Not that I don't have other big issues with ASDAs marketing methods.

When the council built a 'recycling facility' near our village we were invited for a tour around. It was like the one on War on Waste and quite fascinating, especially the machine which pings out the clear plastic. Surprisingly un-smelly too. This was many years ago though so I hope our newspapers are no longer being sent to Wales (from Norfolk) for recycling!

This is the information from our council which I found online. Your council should be putting out a statement as well, boulding2

^Food and garden waste from households is currently collected at the kerbside very week and taken to transfer stations for onward transport to a
composting facility. The material is composted for about 16 weeks in an ‘in-vessel’ system, as food waste is not allowed to be composted in the open air. After 16 weeks all pathogens will have been destroyed by the heat generated by the composting process. The material is then placed outside for a further 16 to 32 weeks for maturation before being used on agricultural land to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. In the near future we will collect food waste separately. It will be processed through anaerobic digestion, providing electricity as it breaks down and resulting in a valuable liquid fertilizer product. The garden waste collected at the household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) is treated in an outdoor ‘windrow composting system’ and we are hoping to have this material for sale at our HWRC’s in the near future^.

never assume anything then boulding2

rosequartz I to also have recycling bins for food waste doesn't mean it always get recycled and when you complain you don't hear anything back.

TriciaF sorry my last comment was for you it was early eighties

No a long time before that when we joined the EU I think.

LullyDully we took a large pumpkin to our daughters - it was a mishape we'd been given free - I carved it with help of eldest DGD, DH and younger DGD picked out all the seeds for roasting and DD made soup with the pulp (plus a few wobbly carrots!). We felt quite proud of ourselves!

I think the programme may be preaching to the converted. Those who blithely put all their waste into the landfill bins (the same ones who think drink cans vanish when thrown from car windows) aren't likely to be watching.

As to the near perfect parsnips going to waste (I was very curious to know what did happen to them), I think that's down to inter-supermarket competition and upmanship. When M&S and Waitrose implied their perfect looking fruit and veg was superior, the others had to go for better looking stuff, so M&S /Waitrose upped their game and went for even more standardised fruit and veg - and so on. it's nothing to do with public demand, it's just the supermarkets keeping up with the Jones.

We found two carrots entwined in a very loving embrace in our vegetable plot.
It seemed such a shame to peel and eat them
(They weren't very easy to peel!)

so now it goes to landfill it's criminal really

We have a food recycling bin from the council (well, two bins, a small one for indoors which gets put into the larger one for collection); it is picked up weekly and goes to make compost I believe.

I can remember the days when vegetable food waste went for the pigs, as it was all boiled I don't see what the problem was.

Lullydally- great to know, but somehow I do believe you are very much in the tiny minority here- but bravo.

Indeed jingl, indeed

'rubbish programme'

I think that it is the whole point actually.

Soil, landspace, fertiliser, water, transport and more- just to throw in the bin not 1 or 2 pumpkins- but certainly 10.000s over the UK alone, with each family using 1, 2 or more each Halloween - it's obscene (mind you all the decorations get thrown out too- straight into landfill- tons and tons of it).

Pumpkins. We made soup from the flesh, roasted the seeds and have put the lanterns on the compost. Zero waste.

I don't understand why all our vegetables have to be uniform, they never used to be. It was fun getting extra large or funny shaped veg as a child.

Good point boulding2 - isn't that since the F&M outbreak of 2001?
I don't think you can even give kitchen leftovers to hens in the UK now. Impossible to police that though.

We never had this problem years ago we went in the shop got our veg went home and cooked ( all veg even parsnips ) then the waste was picked up by pig farmers for there pigs but that was stopped so now it goes to landfill it's criminal really, I for one don't need perfect veg.

It doesn't follow that ignoring use by and sell by dates you threaten your health. These dates are for the time the product is at the height of freshness. It is the date after which, for example, bakery products, start going stale, or fruit starts to go over or other food starts to dry out or discolour slightly. All this food is still perfectly edible and some of it may be for weeks after.

What I do not understand is why people are not encouraged to freeze any food getting near its sell by date, so that it is not wasted. Vegetables, especially root vegetable, can be quickly chopped and frozen, likewise bakery products, meat and fish and some dairy products. Eggs will freeze if you shell them, mix them together and add a bit of salt or sugar before freezing.

I shop to a list and a meal plan, but if things change and we do not eat as planned I just put the food no longer needed into the freezer until I can use it for something else.

People also buy more than they need due to BOGOFS - i have never understood why supermarkets dont just make the goods half price
mrsmopp and it is the farmer who has to fund the cut price offers, not the supermarket!

Grandma123 I have just emptied one with some great compost but melon and pumpkin seeds are still intact!!
Your garden will be one big melon and pumpkin patch next year

I doubt that people who grow pumpkins eat all that they produce. A couple of years ago we had a huge crop of the really big ones , citrouilles here. Stored them in a cool dark place.
I did use one or 2, but the rest went to the hens. They love pumpkin type vegetables.
And will charities accept unsold food from supermarkets? Maybe fruit and veg., but as someone else wrote , probably not other food as it could make people ill.
They won't accept fresh eggs here (I offered some once and was refused.)