Families chucking £90 of food per month in the bin, charity says | UK News

Food waste makes up a quarter of the rubbish wrongly thrown in black bags and “shockingly” 80% of it could be eaten, a recycling charity says.

Wrap Cymru, which says it has combed through “thousands and thousands” of people’s bins, also found the average family in Wales throws out £90 worth of food every month.

Official figures show Wales’ recycling rate is second only to Austria and the charity believes, if more waste is binned correctly, it could be the global leader.

The Welsh government wants Wales to become “a zero waste nation” by 2050, and recently advised councils against collecting general waste more frequently than once every three or four weeks.

Food waste, which is collected from people’s homes by every council in Wales, is used to generate renewable energy and turned into fertiliser.

But, like other forms of waste, it is often put in the wrong bin.

Wrap Cymru says around half of what people put in their general waste could actually be recycled, while in Cardiff the figure is even higher at 60%.

The charity has calculated that diverting a further 7,000 tonnes of food waste from people’s black bags to recycling would have been enough to give Wales the number one recycling spot last time around.

That is the equivalent of every person in Wales recycling an extra banana skin each week.

Nia O’Donnell, a mum-of-two from Cardiff, said she and her family noticed a “stark difference” in the rules of dealing with household waste when they moved to south Wales from London three years ago.

Ms O’Donnell, 43, said at first she and her family were “recycling amateurs”.

“Initially it may be a little bit time-consuming – but then you get into the habit,” she added.

The family have changed a kitchen unit that once housed their bin so that it now has a number of different compartments for various types of rubbish.

Nia’s son Huey said helping his parents with the recycling was “fun” as well as important “so that the Earth can be a better place and [Wales] can be first in the world”.

The O’Donnell family agreed to allow Wrap Cymru look through the contents of their bins.

Alun Thomas from the charity said he was “impressed” with the family’s efforts, but suggested they could cut down even further on what they threw into the general waste.

This might include taking soft plastics – such as crisp packets and bread bags – to a collection point in their local supermarket, and using reusable towels instead of kitchen paper.

He said ensuring food waste was correctly disposed of should be another priority.

“A lot of people still think [food waste] goes to landfill, but that’s long gone,” said Adrian Thomas, of Welsh Water’s anaerobic digestion and composting plant in Cardiff Bay.

The facility takes all of the food waste bags from residents in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

“We make around 3,500 homes’ worth of electricity a year, but it goes next door to power the water treatment works that deals with people’s sewage,” he said.

Wales has made huge strides in boosting its recycling rate in the decades since devolution.

Successive governments in Cardiff Bay have made the issue a priority, with funding and statutory targets for local authorities to hit.

But progress has slowed in recent years as some councils have struggled to reach the goal of a 70% recycling rate by 2025.

The Welsh government wants Wales to become what it describes as “a zero waste nation” by 2050, effectively “a 100% recycling, composting or preparation for re-use rate from all sectors”.

Its latest guidance to councils advises against collecting general waste more frequently than “once every three or four weeks” and says a weekly limit of 60-litres of black bag waste per household is “sufficient”.

Asked if further limits were fair, Mr Thomas of Wrap Cymru said councils were already moving to “a longer gap” between general waste collections and were seeing their recycling rate improve.

“It’s fantastic that we’re second in the world at recycling but that extra effort could be enough to tip Wales over into first – we’re incredibly close,” he said.

Government targets are forcing councils to consider more and more innovative ways of encouraging recycling.

In the Vale of Glamorgan, one of the country’s top performing local authorities, a trial has seen residents in part of the county bag up their soft plastics for collection at the kerbside, rather than binning them or taking them to a supermarket.

“We’re giving it another opportunity to be recycled and turned into bags for life and that type of thing,” explained waste project officer Bethan Thomas.

“It’s gone really well and we’re collecting between 2.5 to 3 tonnes per week – a substantial amount of material and more than we projected.”

The Welsh government said it was “extremely proud that Wales is second in the world when it comes to recycling”.

“This success is thanks to people across Wales who have embraced recycling at home and at work,” a spokesperson added.

“We aim to become the global leader and have already taken steps like phasing out unnecessary single-use plastics, increasing recycling with new workplace recycling laws, launching the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for packaging, and consulting on a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers.”