DO you know how much food waste ends up in your green bin each week?

A lot it turns out and it’s costing each of us about four thousand dollars a year.

According to MidWaste Project Officer Wendy Grant, the average household throws away one fifth of their groceries or one in five bags.

That’s why Ms Grant and others around the world are participating in Stop Food Waste Day on Wednesday 28 April.

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She is calling on North Coast residents to fight food waste.

“Stop Food Waste Day provides an opportunity for everyone to look at how much food they throw away and make some simple changes to reduce food waste, save money and help the environment,” she said.

“Around 1 in every 5 shopping bags full of food we buy ends up in the bin, which means the average family is wasting up to $4,000 every year throwing away food,” Ms Grant said.

“In NSW we throw away around 800,000 tonnes of food to landfill every year.”

Wasted food equals wasted energy, water and natural resources used to grow, package, transport and sell it.

The advice is to shop with a list, know your waste, plan your meals and love your leftovers.

To tackle food waste across the Mid North Coast, MidWaste and local Councils have teamed up with the NSW Environment Protection Authority’s Love Food Hate Waste program to roll out the free online Food Smart program.

“By joining the free Food Smart program, which involves a step-by-step guide and handy resources to reduce waste, your family can make small changes that add up to big savings and protect the environment,” Ms Grant said.

Sign up to stop food waste at your place – www.midwaste.org.au/food-smart.

Organisers of the international day of action say around 33% of all food produced globally is wasted every year and that food waste is central to some of the key challenges around the world today, including climate change, health and wellbeing, hunger and poverty, and the sustainability of agriculture and oceans.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses after the US and China, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

By Sandra MOON