Love Food, Hate Waste
Priority: Health, wellbeing, and awareness
Definition: Our Priority “The active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to holistic health and improve our environmental awareness.”
What is the issue?
The Eco-Committee decided that as part of their action plan they would tackle food waste in their school. First food waste was researched, with a focus on why food waste matters. The Eco-Committee discovered food waste increases greenhouse gas emissions by up to 10% and that we waste enough food each year to feed every single person in the UK 3 meals a day for 3 months. Whilst the Eco-Committee knew that the catering team at Villiers High School already does a lot to reduce waste (composting, oil recycling, stocks and soups using production waste) they also knew that they and their schoolmates could do more. Over the week, they measured food waste at 75kg or the equivalent of 150 lunches or 15kg of food waste per day.
The BIG idea?
At Villiers, we decided to support the #LoveFoodHateWaste campaign. A campaign to focus our attention on appreciating our food, where it comes from, love local and highlighting the catastrophic issues plagued with wasting your food. We wanted to raise awareness of this and stop wasting food!
Our Outcomes
- Food waste was weighed each day in the canteen by our Canteen Manager to monitor the most/least popular food and alert students to our food waste campaign.
- Food waste was reduced from an average of 15kg to 5kgs per day.
- Meat free Tuesdays has a high uptake of food sales and low food waste
- Every student was given an Eco Rewards card and a stamp for finishing their food each day. 5 stamps = a free drink in the canteen in their reusable water bottle.
- Returning for seconds, rather than overloading plates
- Students can share their opinions on school food choices in an online canteen survey and suggestion box in the canteen.
- A permanent foodbank donation point was set up in the school reception for students, staff, and parents to bring donations to Ealing Foodbank Charity.
- The Eco Committee led an assembly across all year groups educating their peers on the problems of food waste and how we can love our food and reduce our waste.
The Love Food, Hate Waste Eco Day was held on 18th March 2022. Students were invited to join a competition designing a new healthy canteen menu and others created news reports and made presentations on the food waste crisis. Over the week, 6th Form Eco Reps held a food waste quiz rewarding students with free upcycled stationary and healthy flapjacks. There was a year group competition to see who could donate the most food! Well done to the Year 7s who won this year. Who will win it next year? Even more lessons were outdoors, and students loved learning about biofuel and rockets in science, debating food waste systems in Humanities and how healthy eating is crucial for a healthy lifestyle in PE.
