Scary Amount of Food Waste at Halloween
As Halloween creeps up on us again, households are stocking up on pumpkins, nuts, apples, and other goulish delights. Spare a thought however for the poor pumpkin of which 25{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} is discraded into the waste bin (landfill) by households. In the UK this equates to 18,000 tonnes of needless waste. And UK’ers could use this “waste” to make pumpkin soup, or put in the compost heap or the brown bin!
In Ireland..
we discard 1 million tonnes of food waste per year. Our fruit and veg share a fate similar to the pumkin in that 25{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of them goes in the grey bin. Our most popular discarders are potatoes, apples and bananas. Salads fare worse with householders throwing 50{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of them into the residual bin.
It is extimated that 60{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of the food waste generated by householders is avoidable. We can achieve this by reviewing how we shop, store our food, prepare it, cook it and reuse or recycle it. Another 20{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} can be avoided by the use crusts, peels and cut offs. Recognising simple things like that in a baked potato the skin and flesh are equally important. Both provide equal amounts of nutrients and vitamin C , while the skin provides 80{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of the potato’s iron. Using both helps to reduce food waste.
Consumers can also reduce their food waste by not accepting the sometimes unrealistic use-by dates on food, when a simple sniff can inform you that the food is perfectly edible.
So this Halloween spare a thought for the poor Pumpkin. And before you gorge out it’s inners, ask yourself what I am going to do with them…..something goulish I hope…ha, ha, ha.
Of the 240 million tonnes produced in Europe, 27{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} was sent to landfill, 27{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} was recycled, 26{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} was incinerated and 15{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} was composted. Ireland’s recycling rate in 2014 was 34{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8}, some 7{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} above the EU average, while its composting rate was 6{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8}, well below the EU average of 15{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8}. Recent reports also indicate that 427,000 tonnes of Irish waste was turned into fuel for energy plants. One such plant will be the Poolbeg incinerator, which will incinerate 600,000 tonnes of waste per annum.
These figures show the need for households to utilise the Brown Bin, as 94{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of bio waste is still, it would appear from the 2014 Euro Stat figures, going either to landfill or being contaminated, so as to be of little value. It is hoped that figures would improve with the roll out of the Brown Bin and the introduction of Pay By Weight . But alas Pay by Weight has been shelved, and as no recent statistics have been produced since 2014,
who coincidentally also owned an incinerator and were dealing with Parma’s Municipal Solid Waste. This transition has resulted in the creation of nearly 50 extra jobs and a yearly saving of over €3.5m in waste disposal costs.
Lateral thinking seems to have been the order of the day in Parma, with waste collections in the inner city being performed at night, with more frequent waste collections of bio waste and residual waste in the inner city, with buckets being used for biowaste and bags being used for residual waste. In the residential areas wheelie bins were used for biowaste with buckets being used for the residual waste, collections were done in the mornings and they are less frequent than in the inner city. Parma also introduced an Environmental Brigade to police and monitor the implementation of the waste policy . The Parma Pay By Weight or Pay As You Throw charges consist of a flat service charge based on the number of occupants and the 
square meters of the household and a per lift charge for residual waste (€0.7 per bag, €1.4 per bucket and €4.2 per wheelie bin). The result has been that the collections of residual waste have dropped with only 25{b050ebef00e2b6e935b95b021e9f55f4ab20ffeed47f29e2aa25a2081fec5bc8} of residents putting out their residual waste at every collection. There has also been a significant improvement in the quality of waste collected, allowing for quality recycling, an essential pre-condition for a circular economy and 
supplied with a Brown Bin during the ” 12 month transition phase”, and if not how will they be able to reduce their bill when they will not be able to properly segregate their waste at source and make a comparative analysis. Eat less perhaps, to be on the save side! 
The majority of domestic waste that people produce is reusable and can be recycled or used as compost, and are what as known as green waste and brown waste. The remaining waste is called general waste and normally went to landfills, which are now being closed off, and rightly so, as a waste solution by EU directives. As a large proportion of householders did not and do not segregate their waste, preferring to put their food waste or indeed all their waste into the general waste Pay by Weight was introduced. While Pay by Weight is a seismic shift in how householders look at their waste, with most seeing the merits environmentally, they are not willing to pay extra to do so. 
Unfortunately there are costs involved in implementing a regime that penalises the polluter, involving extra bins for each household, the kitting out of refuse trucks to be able to weigh each bin, the additional costs of extra bin rounds for the collection of the more diverse bins, the extra administrative costs etc. For those who recycle and diligently manage their waste this may seem unfair, as their charges may rise, but not as much as those who do not waste segregate or recycle and place all their waste in the general waste. As with all new regimes that increase costs the public have a right to be cynical and sceptical, and it therefore rests with the enforcement agencies to ensure that the bins are monitored and that enforcement is not dependent on the waste service providers or members of the public. For Pay by Weight to succeed, equity and enforcement
, not only will you save on your waste charges but you will do so effortlessly and without a hassle!
