Families waste more food than single people in the UK with bread and potatoes getting binned the mos
Single people in the UK waste more food than any other households, a report reveals.
The report was produced by WRAP, a charity which advises local governments, companies, and communities about how to reduce waste.
It's campaign, 'Recycle now', is the national recycling campaign for England and is used by 90% of local authorities.
The report was conducted across the UK, from London to Newcastle-upon-Tyne by local authorities measuring what we throw away.
It said: "Most of the food we throw away (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten if it had been managed better."
The report explains that £10.2 billion of food goes to waste in the UK each year, roughly £520 per household.
It concluded: "Larger households waste more avoidable food than smaller households; certain types of households (e.g.households with children) appear to waste more food but that is mainly because they contain more people.
"Single person households waste the most food per capita basis."
So Derbysphere decided to put this to the test. The three types of households in the report are a single person, a family and a household of unrelated adults.
We put this to the test by measuring how much waste each type of household generated over one week to see who threw away the least.
Then the cost of what was thrown away was estimated and split it between each person in the household.
Anthony Webster, aged 52, of Porthill, Newcastle-under-Lyme, lives in a semi-detatched house on his own and says that he thinks that he does not waste much food.
He said: "I do not tend to waste a lot of food because if I have any left over I freeze it and eat it at a later date.
"Although I do throw away a lot of bread because I like buying from the bakery and it does not keep well."
Over the week Anthony wasted £2.03 worth of food.
He said: "I did not make many meals from scratch this week and ate my frozen leftovers instead, so I am not surprised I wasted the least."
Neil McNulty, aged 52, Judith Webster, aged 49, and Chloe Webster, aged 17, of Packmoor, Stoke-on-Trent, are putting the report to the test as the family group ,they also think they do not throw away a lot of food.
Judith said: "We throw away food a few times a week which could have been eaten, but I do not think that we waste a lot.
"I think that we waste bread the most because during the weekend we eat it but in the week we do not eat a great deal of it and it goes stale or moldy."
The family threw away £5.12 worth of food during the week, Judith was surprised that they did not throw away more money.
She said: "We threw away a lot of expensive things this week which normally get eaten like chicken and pate.
"I am shocked that the total was only £5, I honestly thought that it would be double that."
Charlotte Copeland, aged 21, of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, and Jessica Smith, aged 24 of Mier Park, Stoke-on-Trent live in a flat together and they will be the final household of unrelated adults.
Jessica explains that she does not think that she wastes a lot of food however there are times when they do waste a lot.
Jessica said: "I would say that we were quite good to be fair.
"Normally I manage to eat the food before it starts to go off and charlotte eats a lot of ready meals so there is not much waste."
Jessica said: "Sometimes it is difficult to eat things in time because with us being at university we can go home unexpectedly."
Graphic showing some of the food that was wasted in one week of the Derbysphere survey.
Overall the household that threw away the most were the family with £5.12 worth of food going into the bin this week.
However, if you work out the cost per person Jessica and Charlotte threw away the most at £2.23 each.
By far the most wasted food was potatoes with 13 wasted between the three households.
The next thing to be wasted most was bread with one loaf and two bread rolls wasted and in third place were bananas with four wasted.
So overall the report was not correct as the single person household did not waste the most on a per capita basis as the household of unrelated adults wasted 20p more per week.
On the other hand, the report did say that overall the family would waste the most per household which is the same result we found.
However, all parties agree that it should not be measured by per person but through per household.
Judith said: "With the waste measured per person a household can get away with throwing away a lot more food.
"I think that it should change because larger households do not need to throw more food away more than a single household as there are more people to eat the food."
However, all households performed better than the national average, over a year the most expensive amount of waste would be from the family at £266.24, considerably less than the report's estimation of £520.
