Resident wins food mixer in recycling prize draw

CARMARTHENSHIRE resident Dinah Guilfoyle has won a food mixer for filling in a food waste diary for a week.

Any food wasted by the Guilfoyle family, from Nantyffin, near Brechfa, is given to their chickens to eat, put into their compost bin, or put out for collection by the council.

The prize draw was held by the council’s waste and recycling section as part of the European Week for Waste Reduction.

Residents were encouraged to fill in a food diary for a week to find out just how much food they throw away.

The aim was to show people just how much food they waste and what they can do to reduce it, saving money at the same time.

Mrs Guilfoyle, who is a keen recycler, said: “I don’t like to waste food anyway, my parents grew up during the war, so I am part of the ‘waste not, want not’ generation. If we do have any waste we feed it to the chickens or it goes in the compost bin, and if it can’t be composted at home then we put it out for the council’s food waste collection.”

Figures show that an estimated £610million worth of good food – a total of 210,000 tonnes – is thrown away in Wales every year.

But there are lots of things you can do to reduce the amount of food you throw away, from writing a shopping list so you don’t buy too much to storing it correctly so that it doesn’t go off. For more information and advice visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Executive Board Member for Technical Services Cllr Colin Evans said: “Unfortunately, we all have some unavoidable food waste such as eggshells and bones which should be separated from the rest of our rubbish and put into our food bins so that it can be collected and sent for composting instead of going to landfill.”

Residents are reminded that their food bins go out weekly, with blue bags and black bags on alternate weeks. For more information please visit www.carmarthenshire.gov.uk/recycling