Food waste reduction advocates are welcoming plans to kick food scraps to the kerb - and save them from landfill.
Photo: 123RF
The government wants to roll out kerbside collection of food waste for most urban households by 2030, as part of its Emissions Reduction Plan.
The plan also includes more investment in waste infrastructure like composting, and helping businesses to reduce their food waste.
Love Food Hate Waste project manager Sarah Pritchett said food waste in Aotearoa painted a grim picture.
"The average family wastes $664 per year which is probably about two shopping trolleys full, and that creates in total 409,234 tonnes of carbon emissions.
"So it's quite massive."
Currently not many councils have food waste collections in place, but Pritchett said the ones in place were making a difference.
Food scrap collections could help people to realise how much they were wasting, she said.
She wanted to see everyone involved in the mahi including businesses.
"It will actually benefit businesses. They should be able to reduce their waste disposal cost when they separate out food waste, so I think it's a win-win.
"I think there just needs to be support for businesses to do this in a way that enables them to reduce food waste in their supply chain as well. So they might start asking questions of their supplier and finding out what their supplier is doing to reduce food waste."
It is estimated that the average family wastes about two shopping trolleys full of food each year. Photo: 123RF
Food waste reduction advocates want the government to set a firm target.
"We think there needs to be a definitive commitment by the government to say 'yes, we're committed to halving food waste ... we're going to implement all of these programmes'. But just to make that commitment and have a target is really important so that we all start taking steps to reduce food waste," Pritchett said.
In Palmerston North, Lucy said her family of seven did not create much food waste, but she was keen to see a food scrap collection.
"By planning what we're gonna have for the week, what we're gonna have for that day, and make sure that we just have enough for that, not extra. You're saving money too."
Troy said reducing food waste could be a challenge, especially when you have kids.
"I don't know what we can do there. It's not something I put a lot of thought into. We eat as a family for dinner so the day to day stuff is pretty good, I would say.
"My biggest concern is the packaging that comes with food these days, not the waste of food itself."
David tried to compost where he can, but said a kerbside food scrap collection would definitely help.
"That would be handy because I also actually feed a pet rabbit. He does have waste output but I generally have to collect his food input.
"It's not nice to have to rely on general disposable rubbish bins to store that sort of thing so hence why I try to find a compost."
Dr Jeff Seadon is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology's School of Future Environments.
He said the collection would have a small but significant impact as it was a plan people could engage with.
Similar collections have a small bin that could be kept inside before being emptied into a larger bin that was collected weekly, Seadon said.
"There are possibilities of contamination with that ... but I think that with the scale that we have, it is possible that the contamination rate will be quite low and so they will be easier to manage."
The infrastructure for dealing with food waste was growing but it was not there yet, he said.
The Ministry for the Environment is consulting on household kerbside recycling with submissions closing at the end of the week.