Food waste is a mounting $5.4 million dilemma.
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New research has revealed Victorians waste 250,000 tonnes of food every year.
The average Victorian household throws away more than $2000 a year worth of food.
But one young Ballarat family has taken on the challenge to reduce their waste.
Georgia Siemensma, 14, was inspired to make changes in her family home after hearing about the impact of waste on the environment.
“It is gross and disgusting how much we waste,” Georgia said.
She shared her passion for making small changes to reduce waste in The Courier’s 2017 Shout Magazine.
Since, her family has fed food scraps to the dogs and chickens, eaten leftovers for lunch, and shopped with a list designed for planned meals.
It is gross and disgusting how much we waste.
- Georgia Siemensma
As well as reducing food waste, Georgia is constantly thinking of ways to reduce other forms of rubbish.
She has begun reusing coffee cups to grow vegetable seedlings and eliminated the use of a plastic bag in the family’s rubbish bin.
“We put the bin out sometimes and it is only half full, whereas in the past, sometimes we had struggle to get everything in,” Georgia’s father Rob said.
These small but powerful actions have ensured the Siemensma family hasn’t fallen into the nine out of 10 Victorians who feel guilty about how much food they waste.
More than 45 per cent of people surveyed for new Sustainability Victoria research admitted they buy food they don’t need.
A new campaign Love Food Hate Waste, Love a List wants other families to follow in the footsteps of others like the Siemensmas, by starting with the simple step of writing a better shopping list – and sticking to it.
For No Waste Ballarat founder Donna McMaster, composting and freezing excess food helps reduce her waste.
Wasting food means wasting natural resources such as water and energy used to produce and transport it, and contributing to climate change through emissions from landfill.
Those who don’t compost or have chickens can give their food scraps to those who do through the website sharewaste.com.
Households can sign up to the Love a List challenge online.
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