Reduce

Love Food Hate Waste

Over £1 billion worth of food is wasted by consumers in Scotland each year. That's an average of £430 per household! If we stopped wasting all this food, we could prevent the equivalent of 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in Scotland. This is the same as taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.

At a local level, there are almost 183,000 households in Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross Councils combined (GROS 2008), meaning in Tayside we throw away over £78 million of food every year!

For information on reducing your food waste, including advice and recipes from some of Scotland's top chefs and food writers please visit www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk.

Stop-The-Drop

Over a third of all direct mail is discarded unopened (Direct Mail Info Service 2006) There are five easy ways you can reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive and benefit the environment. To find out how, please visit www.stop-the-drop.org.uk.

Positive Packaging

Packaging plays an important role in protecting and preserving the products we buy and in most cases we couldn't do without it. The products you choose to buy can have a big influence on the amount of waste created. Looking out for products with reduced packaging and following some of our hint and tips could have a significant impact on the amount of waste you produce.

For more information on how you can reduce, reuse and recycle your packaging waste visit www.positivepackage.org.uk

Home Composting

Composting at home is a great way to dispose of your kitchen, garden and household waste. Your raw fruit & vegetable peelings, cardboard, paper and garden waste will break down to produce compost to help your garden grow. Tayside has two Waste Reduction Advisers, Alison McKinnie (Dundee and Perth & Kinross) and Sheila Wiseman (Angus). They are available for talks to local groups, to help novices get started and to provide expert advice to those with more experience. For further information visit the Waste Reduction Advisers page.

Top Tayside Tips to help Reduce

• Try to avoid over-packaged goods.
• Try to buy "loose" food rather than pre-packaged, especially fruit and vegetables. Visit local farmers markets, or Pick-Your-Own and only buy as much as you need.
• Look for long lasting, energy efficient appliances when buying new electrical items.
• Use low energy bulbs, rechargeable batteries and consider solar power and wind-up as alternative power sources.
• Use your own shopping bags or boxes; consider using doorstop delivery instead of visiting the supermarket.
• Sign up for online newsletters and electronic billing to reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive.
• Buy gift experiences, hire items and repair where possible.