Maynooth Tidy Towns are raising awareness of Food Waste, in conjunction with the Irish environmental NGO VOICE.
Tidy Towns Maynooth have been working with VOICE to raise awareness of the issue at a local level. They will host an event called ‘Food Rescue’, where they will provide tasters for members of the public using food frequently wasted. Supervalu Maynooth are very generously providing the food for the event. Mary Jennings, of the Tidy Towns Maynooth Committee, said: “while much of food waste occurs at home, it also occurs at the manufacturing and retail stage. We will give people tips about reducing food waste, including tasty recipes to use up leftover food which will be demonstrated by local chef Gillian Duff. This will be a fun and informative event for all, where people can learn about how to save money and reduce their environmental impact while enjoying delicious food prepared by Gillian. We will do our part to reduce our environmental impact, even the plates and cutlery will be compostable!”
This event is the first of a series of Food Rescue events that will be hosted by Tidy Towns groups in Kildare in the coming months.
Food Waste is a global problem with 1.3 billion tonnes of food going to waste annually across the world and with Ireland contributing with its 1 million tonnes.
Mindy O’Brien, Coordinator of VOICE , works in the area of Food Waste awareness. “In Ireland, we throw out around 30% of the food that we buy. Households are losing out financially, to the tune of up to €800 a year. In addition to this, there are environmental impacts from the energy, water and transportation that go into getting the food on the shelf and further greenhouse gases are released from food rotting in landfill. A huge part of the challenges of stopping climate change and meeting future food demand will be to significantly reduce the colossal amount of food that is wasted.”
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