How much ends up in your bin, and why care?
At some time or another (probably more often than we would like to admit!) we have all thrown out a piece of fruit, stale bread, wilting vegetables, or leftover dinner. However, did you know that this little habit, combined, is contributing to 800,000 tonnes of food waste each year in NSW alone? This equates to 315 kg of food thrown out in your household, costing you about $1036 each year!
Not only is our wasteful behaviour hurting our wallets, but it is also costing the Earth. Food waste in landfills can cause excessive nutrients to leach into the ground causing land and ground water contamination, not to mention the effects that the gas emissions of decomposing foods have. In fact, when food waste, together with other organic materials, breaks down in landfill, it produces a vast amount of methane gas – the equivalent to putting an extra 117,000 cars on the road!