Week 3 - Reducing food waste on the airwaves

Ooooh, I wish I could package up this week's content from BBC Radio Suffolk and keep it forever.

It's Week 3 of The BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, and we're addressing the problems of food waste.  It is such a huge topic, there's a lot to get your teeth into and chew over!

It's been great to hear stories of how some participants have already reduced their rubbish by 50% just from recycling/reducing much of the packaging waste, but if we can tackle the food waste issue, we are going to see even more amazing results.

For instance our household waste in Suffolk includes 35,000 tonnes of food waste, which costs us local taxpayers £3.14m in disposal fees each year.  Just imagine if as a county we could halve that! Our contributions as taxpayers and the money in our own pockets would go much further.

This week, BBC Radio Suffolk has introduced another fabulous line-up of contributors on the Mark Murphy show and today alone we heard a great interview with Emma Marsh who heads up the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which caught my own imagination back in 2007.

If you do nothing else this week, I'd highly recommend listening into today's show on iPlayer, where Emma shares her tips on planning and food storage.  Just fast forward to around 1h 12mins for advice on fridge temperatures, invigorating limp carrots and how to extend salad leaves, plus much more.

Other great highlights from today also include the amazing story of Jim & Diane from Felixstowe who haven't needed to put out their rubbish bin for four years, thanks to avoiding stuff that can't be recycled, recycling all that they can, keeping on top of food waste and composting the rest in their wormery.  FOUR YEARS!  That's incredible.  You'll find their feel-good interview with roving reporter Luke Deal at 1h 28mins.

And at 2h 26m, you'll also find Colin Brown, Director of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineering, discussing the Institution's report on food waste, Global Food - waste not, want not, which estimates that 30-50% of food waste doesn't reach a human stomach.

With callers sharing their top tips and highlighting the issues that they've seen, it's proving to be a hot topic.

And if that's not enough, you should listen into yesterday's show too, with Mark Matthews sitting in, featuring the Feeding the 5K's Gleaning network, helping to rescue unsold food from farmers to feed those who are living in poverty.  You can hear Martin Bowman explaining the concept at around 1h 8mins.

And further into the programme (starting at 2h 8mins) are some great tips from Super Scrimper's contributor Jane Sago, who's also the Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Suffolk East Federation of Women's Institutes.

Coming up later this week, we'll also hear Luke Deal investigating 'fatbergs' in the water systems of Suffolk, as a reminder that flushing unused food waste down the loo is not the answer to reducing food waste or disposing of it responsibly.

So if you're inspired to tackle your own food mountain, my top tip is to start monitoring it straight away and keep a food waste diary to identify solutions for the things that you regularly throw away, through buying & cooking less, storing better and working out what best fits your routine.

If you sign up to the Rubbish Diet challenge, you'll receive lots more advice on how to reduce all kinds of waste.  And for more recipes than you can shake a stick at, visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com, where you can also download their new iPhone & Android app.

And please do keep your stories coming in, whether your news is good or bad.  It's always great to hear from you and together we're making a real difference. THANK YOU!