Green Limerick: Time to manage our food waste wisely

WHO ELSE is guilty of it? I know for certain I have been in the past. You head to the fridge to cook yourself a healthy meal and to kick start that new lifestyle you’ve been putting off only to realise the veg you purchased over a week ago is looking worse for wear… into the bin it goes and within the next 20 minutes, an order for a Supermacs delivery has been placed.

Earlier this month saw the staging of National Food Waste Recycling Week by MyWaste.ie which sought to provide practical advice along with tips to encourage more to recycle their food waste.

One-third of waste from the average Limerick household is compostable, yet time and time again, compost bins tend to be the smallest supplied by waste companies or bought by the general population.

Raw and cooked foods, leftover food scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds, paper filters for a coffee machine, kitchen rolls, toilet rolls, and even newspaper (as long as it’s not placed in bundles) can all be placed in your food waste or compost bin (where appropriate).

According to MyWaste, food waste is a vital issue when it comes to climate change. This is because wasted food can sometimes end up in landfill where it will produce methane, a harmful greenhouse gas; this combined with the resources used to get the food to us, the consumers, and then wasting this food can have significant impacts on the environment.
Disposing of your food waste properly, diverts it from landfill, letting it be transformed into renewable energy and fertilisers used for horticulture and agriculture.

According to an EPA research study, food waste in Ireland is estimated to be around 1.1 million tonnes per year, but the study excluded data from the farming, fishing and aquaculture sectors.

According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals we need to decrease food waste at consumer level by 50% by 2030.

In 2020, it was estimated that households produced the highest amount of food waste out of all the individual sectors including the manufacturing, food service, primary production and retail sectors.

This means managing food waste needs to begin in the kitchen of every home. The easiest way of starting to cut down on harmful food waste is by making sure you have a compost/food waste bin which are supplied by most waste disposal companies.

It’s quite easy to ignore the issue of disposing of waste properly, including recycling. Previously, I lived in an apartment block in Limerick city centre where waste bins were provided by the owners of the building but there was only general and recycling available and even at that the bins ended up being a mixture of the two.

It’s an issue that deserves a discussion as time and time again it has shown that discussions lead to change.

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