Doncaster Council – Love Food Hate Waste Campaign

Love Food Hate Waste is a national campaign launched by WRAP (Waste Recycling Action Programme) in 2007 to tackle the 8 million tonnes of food waste thrown away each year in the UK at a cost of £12 billion to households. Since its launch millions of people have responded saving around £1.5 billion worth of food.

In 2015 WRAP announced that an estimated 7.3 million tonnes of household food waste was thrown away with 4.4 million tonnes of this being classed as avoidable food waste (waste that was edible at some point before being put in the bin) at a cost to UK householders of £13 billion a year.

This equates to around £60 a month of food waste thrown away by households in the UK. Food waste is expensive to consumers and has a high disposal cost when disposed of through the residual waste stream.

The Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham (BDR) Waste Partnership is actively participating in the Love Food Hate Waste Campaign, adopting some of the principles of the national campaign to reduce the amount of food waste and centres around 5 themes:

  • Perfect Portions
  • Love Your leftovers
  • Savvy Storage
  • Know your dates
  • Planning Perfection

Following the 2017 Love Food Hate Waste campaign, the most recent waste composition analysis for the BDR Waste Partnership shows that around 33.5% of household residual waste across the area consists of food waste. This is a reduction of over 75% from the same time in 2016. It is estimated that households across the three boroughs are each disposing of 2.2 kg, 2.4 kg and 2.5 kg of food waste a week respectively. Of this, over 60% is classed as avoidable food waste or food and drink which has been thrown away but at some point prior to disposal was edible.

The 2018 BDR Love Food Hate Waste campaign consisted of:

  • Information events on food waste at local supermarkets and foodbanks
  • Encouraging residents to make pledges relating to food consumption and how they can reduce food waste
  • A resource where residents can share tips for storing food, using leftovers and wasting less;
  • Displaying materials about the impact of food waste with a call to action and simple steps to reduce food waste and save money;
  • Using social media, traditional print media and radio advertising to support the campaign;
  • Handing out recipe cards at events;
  • Promotional items handed out such as reusable shopping bags and a magnetic shopping list pad.