 How food waste contributes to climate change
The average UK carbon footprint is 12.7 tonnes of cabon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year, split mainly between food, accommodation, and travel.
Vehicle fuel is typically 11%, personal flights are around 9% and household gas and energy is roughly 16%. A huge 25% of the UK's carbon footprint comes from food, including food waste.
Food and drink is the highest single contributor to a person's carbon footprint - meaning food waste could be your biggest contributor to climate change.
Reducing your food waste is a great way to make a huge difference.
 Climate issues associated with food waste
When food breaks down it releases methane which is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. It's over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide when released.
This means food waste contributes to a lot of the global warming issues we face such as food supply issues due to droughts and lack of water supply, respiratory issues due to air pollution and an increased number of wildfires due to extreme weather conditions and increased temperatures.
Disposing of your food waste scraps in your food waste caddy might seem like a small contribution, but it can hugely reduce your carbon footprint.
 Reducing your food waste
If everyone in the UK stopped throwing away food it would do the same for climate change as taking 14,000 cars off the road for a whole year.
To avoid unnecessarily throwing away food, why not try:
• Using up every last ingredient every week by only purchasing foods you need for planned meals
• If you have any food you fear will go out of date before use, freeze it if you can and defrost for another day
• Keeping your leftovers for a meal at the end of the week
• Upcycling food scraps that you cannot use, for example baking potato peelings and seasoning them as crisps
 Recycling your food waste
In Wokingham borough, 24% of the waste found in blue rubbish bags is food waste, contributing a further 500 tonnes per month to waste instead of recycling it and transforming it into energy for local homes. A waste truck carries anywhere between 12 to 14 tonnes – so that’s around 42 truckloads of food waste each month that could be prevented or recycled!
When you throw food waste into blue bags, it gets taken to landfill, where it rots and releases harmful gases. However, when you recycle your food waste it can be turned into something useful.
Your food waste is taken to an Anaerobic Digestion processing facility which captures the methane and turns it into energy. The process also produces a fertiliser which can be used in farming.
In your food waste caddy you can recycle most items from tea bags, eggs, meat bones to out of date food and cooking oils (put into a plastic bottle and placed inside your outdoor caddy). For the full list of items that can be put in your food waste, visit our food waste recycling webpage.
Still not using the food waste collection service? You can get caddies and liners from one of our local stockists. Visit our website to find local collection hubs and opening times.
 One blue bag challenge
Last year we threw away more than we recycled. We threw away 36,000 tonnes of rubbish last year, half of which could have been recycled – 24 per cent through your food waste collection service.
To encourage this, we are inviting residents to the join the one blue bag challenge. If we all use only one blue bag per week for each household, this would significantly reduce the amount of rubbish we send to landfill or burn for energy.
Buy less, recycle more and feed your food caddy. We’re in this together - let’s all play our part.
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