Love Food Hate Waste campaign #SpoiledRotten aims to reduce 7.1m tonnes of food waste

A waste recycling company is offering tips to help people in Nottinghamshire buy only what food they need, in a bid to cut waste.

This summer, the Love Food Hate Waste campaign #SpoiledRotten has aimed to reduce the 7.1m tonnes of food waste generated every year in UK homes.

Nottinghamshire Veolia, the county council’s waste contractors, have some top tips, along with easy recipes to help love your leftovers.

There are many factors that contribute to causing food waste, for example, including shopping without checking what is already at home, or cooking too much pasta because it’s difficult to know how much to use.

Victoria Thacker from Veolia Nottinghamshire said “We often leave salads to wilt in their bags, end up throwing out half a loaf of stale bread, and find forgotten punnets of gone-off fruit because we overestimate how much we will eat.

“When it comes to food, we’re spoiled rotten.”

The equivalent of 3.5 meals per person is thrown away every week in the UK.

That wasted food costs money ­— roughly £230 per person annually in the UK ­— and the amount of C02 it emits is equal to that generated by one in four of the cars on our roads. But this does not have to be the case.

Victoria added “There are lots of ways that everyone can take individual action and change their food wastage habits, from over-buying milk ‘just in case’ to buying a bag of apples when the recipe needs only one or two.”

Here are some tips to help save food from being wasted ­— and save some money too

l Check your fridge before going to the shops or ordering online. Taking a photo to the shop with you is easy.

l Check the freezer too.

l Make a list so you get everything you need and don’t end up with duplicates

l Ask yourself if you need a whole bag of potatoes, apples or onions or if it might be better to pick a few loose ones?.

● Try home composting for banana skins, tea bags and vegetable peelings.

Recipes for leftovers are available at www.veolia.co.uk/nottinghamshire/LoveYourLeftovers