Andy Wallace has invited me to dinner
while I interview him, so I meet him at eight o'clock, not at some charming
local cafe or new Japanese sushi bar, but at the back of the local supermarket
beside the rubbish bins. 'Have a tuna sandwich - they look delicious. And
here's some almond croissants. Fantastic'
Andy
is a 'freegan' - pronounced /fri:gan/. He can perfectly well afford to buy
food, but he chooses not to as a protest against our shamefully wasteful
consumer society. 'This food is perfectly good and could have fed at least
thirty people. According to a recent government survey, up to a third of the
food we buy is thrown away, which in the UK amounts to a staggering £420 of wasted
food per adult per year. Lord Haskins, the government's food and farming
adviser, said, 'We are very greedy when we go and shop. Our eyes are bigger
than our stomachs in homes and in restaurants.' However, according to Andy, the
government itself is simply not doing enough in the first place to combat this
incredible waste.The food redistribution charity, 'Fareshare', specialises in
collecting high-quality food before it is past its sell-by date, and taking it
to the many charities who feed our country's poor and vulnerable. If we were
able to redistribute as muc food as they do in the states, we could give out at
least 50,000 tonnes of free food a year. If only our governmentsupported these
food redistribution charities, along with forcing our food businesses to
cooperate, then it would be possible.
Freegans
feel strongly that our wasteful consumerist culture with all its endless
producing, packaging, buying and binning, is entirely to blame for the
destruction of the planet. 'I just never buy food,' he explains. For many
people, Freeganism will be a step too far, but it serves to highlight the
shameful waste of millions of tons of food every year in the UK.