Donal Hickey: Tis the season for food and packaging waste — but it doesn't have to be
Philip McDonough, SuperValu, Patrick McKinney, Too Good To Go account manager, and Rachel Murphy, duty manager, SuperValu Blessington: SuperValu has teamed up with food waste management company, Too Good To Go.
Up to 50% more food is wasted at Christmas than during the year, studies reveal.
Just look at all those well-loaded trollies leaving supermarkets in the run-up to the feasting season and you might reason why so much food is thrown out.
Too Good To Go, the anti-food waste app, says wastage could be as high as 60% in places — and that 1.8 million kilos of food could be thrown out in Ireland in the Christmas/New Year period.
Citing bulk buying as a critical factor in wastage, the app says a ‘solid menu plan’ to work out how much food is really needed for the holiday season is the best way to reduce waste.
Many people don’t have plans to use left-overs in the days following December 25.
Mind you, it’s not all negative. Half of Irish people are expected to re-use wrapping paper from other occasions for their Christmas gifts, for example.
A massive 100,000 tonnes of packaging should be created during the festive season. A year ago, the comparative figure was 97,000 tonnes, according to Repak.
Just imagine the average home on Christmas Day, after the presents are hastily opened. Multi-coloured paper, cardboard, plastic and boxes — some bulky and difficult to recycle — thrown round the living-room floor.
Plastic will be everywhere. Cardboard boxes containing children’s toys, for example, often have plastic windows. Ireland’s EU target is to recycle 50% of all plastics by 2025: an aim that will be difficult to achieve, given that we currently recycle just 31%.
Repak and other environmental organisations are urging people to be eco-conscious at Christmas; to be aware of waste generation, to recycle properly, and to reuse. Surveys last year showed 46% of people reused wrapping paper.
And what about those unwanted gifts?
Repak’s research, which examined attitudes towards sustainability at Christmas, found that 93% of shoppers receive gifts they don’t use. How many are then dumped, you might ask?
Yet, many people still plan to buy multiple gifts.
Talking about recycling in general, there’s been very little change in our practices since 2018. Irish businesses and householders are still putting most of their waste into the wrong bin, says a recent EPA report. More than two-thirds of waste in the general waste bins should be placed in recycling and organic waste bins.
Food waste is the most common waste found in the ‘wrong’ bins, and this at its worst around Christmas. Thousands of households and businesses still do not have organic bins for correct food waste separation.
“The waste industry needs to do more by providing organic waste bins to all households and commercial premises and support awareness campaigns to make segregation easier,’’ urges Micheal Lehane, EPA director of environmental sustainability.
