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Reducing Food Waste: Tips for Homes & Businesses Ahead of Simpler Recycling 2025

Food waste is an extremely common problem here in the UK throughout homes and businesses. For many UK households, food waste causes stress on disposable income, especially with the increasing cost of living. Food waste also heavily impacts commercial businesses as producers often struggle to keep up with demand, as well as supermarkets attempting to balance food waste with ensuring the shelves stay stocked.

2017 saw the introduction of Stop Food Waste Day, now recognised globally in every corner of the world as a day to unite to educate, inspire, and ignite change. 8 ears on, food waste is still a global issue with a wide variety of environmental, social and economic impacts.

Below are some of the most important facts about food waste and why it is such a concern for the environment and our economy:

    • 33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every single year: that translates to $1.2 trillion worth of food annually.
    • Almost 50% of all fruits and vegetables produced globally every year is wasted, equivalent to about 3.7 trillion apples.
    • If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emission producing country in the world.
    • If 25% of the food currently lost or wasted were saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people.

UK Hospitality found that nearly half of Brits didn’t know the difference between the dates listed on our supermarket foods, meaning that 10% of domestic food waste across the country was thrown away while still being perfectly edible, just because the ‘best before’ date had expired.

Commercial Food Waste

Many businesses often face the issue of how to dispose of commercial food waste as they are often subject to regulations which require them to dispose of their food waste using reliable disposal services, to not only protect the public they serve but also the environment. Here at J&B Recycling, we offer commercial food waste collections and recycling services across the North East of England. If you are looking for support with commercial waste, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Domestic Food Waste

Almost three quarters of UK food waste is produced by domestic households. On average, a sixth of the food that we buy is thrown away, which includes the 5 million tonnes of food that may have been perfectly edible, estimated to be around £15 billion.

At home, we can all do our bit to help reduce the amount of food waste we produce by being level-headed about what we purchase and what we use. Try making simple changes, such as resisting multi-buy offers if the product won’t be used in time, or freeze any ingredients if they won’t be used before expiring.

Adopting a first in, first out strategy when putting ingredients into the fridge/freezer means the older ingredients will be used first. Creating new recipes out of the ingredients that are due to be tossed is a great way to add variety to your daily meal plan.

Furthermore, with the introduction of simpler recycling in March 2025, food waste disposal has never been so important. Simpler Recycling 2025 is a new set of regulations aiming to reduce the volume of waste going into landfill working to establish a circular economy where more volume of waste is reused and recycled. It requires businesses with more than 10 employees, schools and healthcare providers to segregate their waste more efficiently.

How will the simpler recycling legislation affect my business?

Regardless of your premises size, location or sector, if your business employs more than 10 employees, it’s essential to start preparing for the 2025 changes to business waste management. We recommend you take action now. 

Prepare for food waste in your business

Business waste management is easier when there is less waste to begin with. Your waste reduction strategy will vary depending on your industry, but some practical tips for general office based businesses are to ensure there is sufficient space to store food correctly at the correct temperature, ensure all staff label food items stored in communal areas, donate unwanted food items that are still in date to a local food bank, ensure buffet food from meetings is immediately refrigerated to prevent spoiling.

Ensure you have the correct front end solutions for your recycling

Ensure you have the correct front-end solutions in place by using clearly labelled, colour-coded bins to differentiate between general waste, recycling, and food waste. This helps your team easily separate waste, reducing contamination and improving recycling efficiency.

Start segregating your business waste now

Don’t wait until the business waste laws change in 2025, start making changes as soon as possible so your team gets into the habit of separating different types of waste streams and they understand how to do it correctly. Educate your team so that every single member of staff knows what can and can’t be recycled. J&B Recycling will work with you to help educate your workforce about good recycling practices. We have lots of FREE resources we can share with you including a guide to recycling symbols and downloadable posters that can be installed in communal areas as a reminder of how to recycle correctly. To learn more on simpler recycling click - J&B Recycling - J&B | Simpler Recycling 2025 Business Waste

J&B Recycling provide waste management solutions for local authorities and business across the North of England. Our main Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) is based in Hartlepool and we have a second site in Middlesbrough, making us ideally placed for collections across Teesside (Hartlepool, Stockton, Middlesbrough and Darlington). We also have a site in Washington and we operate established collection routes throughout Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, Sunderland, North Tyneside and Northumberland. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if we can help with your waste collection.

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