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Food waste

Wasted food has a large environment impact:

  • Approximately a third of all food produced is never eaten (Source: FAO 2011)
  • Households produce the most post-farmgate food waste than all the parts of the supply chain (Source: WRAP 2020).

  • Zero Waste Scotland estimates that the cost of food wasted per average household in Scotland each year equates to £440 (Source: Zero Waste Scotland).
  • The Scottish Waste Environmental Footprint Tool 2022 estimated that the biggest household waste stream by weight in Scotland is food (436,259t), and that food had the lowest rate of recycling of any waste stream (compared to paper and card, plastics, metals, textiles, glass and discarded equipment) (Source: Scottish Waste Environmental Footprint Tool 2022 Household Waste Results Summary, 2024).
  • It takes a lot of resources to produce food, so when it is wasted the energy that was used for growing, processing, packaging, transporting and cooking or cooling the food is also wasted. Zero Waste Scotland estimates that every tonne of food waste prevented equates to a saving of 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

This page was last updated in September 2024.

Further reading under ‘Food and the environment’