OMB

This morning’s news that UK households throw away one third of the food that they purchase has been met with commentary about “wasting” food and money. It does not follow that an individual who throws away food wastes more money than a person who does not throw away food. First off, in all but the rarest of occasions in western society, foodstuffs loose their market value once they are purchased from the retailer (I once sold some dog food on ebay, but this in an edge case). Next, there is an assumption that if someone does not throw away food, they must spend less money than someone who does throw food away. This position fails to take into account numerous factors – the travel costs and time costs associated with making frequent shopping trips – that if counted will help to level the balance sheet. Finally, can we not simply conclude that people who throw away food place a higher value on factors other than food waste (mininising the time they spend in supermarkets for example)?

The real issue here is the burden of Local and National Governments to remove the waste. So why not charge people per kilo of rubbish discarded, incentivising the individual to produce less waste, rather than continually blaming the mysterious corporations and misleading people into believing they can accumulate more of the paper stuff by throwing less food away?