What is your food waste situation looking like at home? Fruits and vegetables that have gone off can, of course, be composted, but our aim should be to compost the inedible / off-cuts from fruits and vegetables and not to use our YOLO Compost Tumblers as a conscience-free dump site for produce that has gone off.
In the 2017 Food Loss and Waste: Facts and Futures report published by WWF last year, they found that “In South Africa, a third of all food is never consumed and ends up at rubbish dumps”.
This waste has to go somewhere (70% of this is fruits, veg and cereals).
“About 90% of waste in SA is disposed of to landfills, where the food-waste component leads to the production of methane gas and carbon dioxide.”
While only 5% of waste occurs at consumer level, it amounts to around 500,000 tonnes (of the 10-million tonne total). Add this to the 2-million tonnes wasted in distribution and retail… and that’s a lot of nutritious food that is thrown away.
This article by Farmer’s Weekly (10 Nov 2017) highlights key points from the report and adds that, “social media is a useful medium to educate consumers on reducing food waste by consuming leftovers, and storing food effectively, amongst others.”
While you may have a YOLO Compost Tumbler in which to toss fruits and vegetables that are past their best, our aim should be to buy less, consume leftovers and to store food effectively to limit the amount of waste we have overall (and save money!).