TASTE OVER WASTE
Welcome to our page! Here, the goal is trying to prevent food waste and help to reduce our beauty standards for fruits and vegetables. We’re going to slow down how much safe-to-eat food we discard with no good reason to, and bring the community together as we do so.
We are Mel, Fin, Ashleigh , and Skie, and we’re glad you decided to look through our page. We hope you enjoy your visit, and that we can inspire you to make a change!
What do we do?
To sum it up, we want to help reduce the amount of food wasted, but there’s so much more to it than that.
We want to help people realise that there are plenty more options than to throw it all away, educate people on more environmentally-friendly meal choices, and encourage those who wish to participate to befriend those in the community and help them to make these changes too.
We think it’s vital to understand the consequences both we and the planet would face if we continued on like this, but it’s also important to actually take action rather than just panicking. It’s much easier than you might think!
Why should we do this?
As of June 2021, in the UK, 71% of consumable waste is from households, 12% from manufacture, 13% from HaFS, and 4% from retail. This means almost ¾ of the waste produced is our fault. These statistics describe the measly 9.5 million tonnes of food we waste as a nation annually.
Of course, along the way we should help to raise awareness for the other categories, but by just saving our leftovers and consuming them later, we’re already making a huge impact.
How can I help?
Glad you asked! There are many ways you can get involved:
- Try to only buy what you know you’ll eat. It can be tempting to buy lots of other items we don’t really need, so making a list and trying to stick to it as you go along, and don’t ever shop when you’re hungry!
- If you do end up with more than you can eat in one go, save it and eat it later. If you can’t do that, try giving to a relative, or someone who needs it, like a homeless person.
- Any unwanted tins or packets or food should be donated rather than thrown away. Currently in Britain, food banks are at an all time low, so donation is very helpful.
- Engage other people! We have an instagram page, @tasteover.waste which you can follow for coming challenges and updates on how to improve this aspect of your life. Like we’ve said, community engagement is part of the goal, so getting your friends, family, and neighbours involved is both welcomed and encouraged.
We have also created a design for an outdoor Taste Over Waste Centre – a place where members of the local community, whether it’s local business owners, environmentalists, volunteers or school children, can come together to learn how we can reduce our carbon footprint, by partaking in gardening/cooking workshops.
For example, people will be shown how to recycle leftovers, with various hacks and recipes demonstrated.
What do you think?
We’d love to know what you think, please get in touch below!
Food waste is huge issue – really good work, compelling in its delivery, and I particularly like the emergence of circularity in the design.
Cool campaign ideas and a fantastic plan – a greatly overlooked topic that would really benefit from some exposure.
I think it would be a good idea to test some locations for your Centre that could work. Are there some locations that would be better than others? What would make the ideal location? Could you have a network of them up and down the city region?
I had no idea that we were responsible for so much food waste – your project has made me think differently about my own food shopping and practises. I like the idea of demonstrating recipes, because sometimes we know we could avoid throwing things away (like carrot leaves), but we don’t know exactly what to do with them. I would love to visit this centre!
This is such a good intro to why we need to tackle food waste in the UK. I think you’ve explained the problem really well. What I really like is that you’ve encouraged action rather than panic creating inaction. The actions you’ve come up with also offer a range of options so people will be able to think about how this might apply to their own lives. The design for the your taste over waste centre is also a great idea. Having a physical location where people can come together and learn about food waste and how to avoid it is such a nice way of building momentum, educating people gently and creating community. I also love the taste over waste handle and slogan. Nice and catchy.
I think this is great! And you’ve given some really simple but effective tips on ways people can make small changes. I like your idea to have cooking classes at your Taste Over Waste centre as this will help people better understand what the ingredients are cooking from scratch and will promote healthy eating. Lots of supermarkets have the ‘wonky veg’ range which is great to see and is the definitely the way forward. If there’s more consumer demand for ‘less perfect’ fruit and veg then that will hopefully stop farmers discarding any produce not ‘pretty enough’ and therefore help reduce waste so your initiative is brilliant!
I think it’s great! Really joined up design concept, the continuity of your design e.g. recipes, storage, limiting shopping, all links together really well – the psychology and practicality are joined together in this idea so it is informative and helps people think about their approach as well as give them practical tips on information on how to maximise their use of food – it is really well-thought through, I am impressed!
In your design for the centre, are you feeding people food cooked at the kitchen area to help demonstrate the recipes? Where do people sit when watching a demonstration? I wouldn’t have the compost next to the kitchen due to smells and flies maybe or could it be screened off / a bit more separation?
I really like all your graphics!
I think many people underestimate the huge impact of food waste and as your statistics show, we are responsible for a massive percentage. I think your idea to raise awareness around this and offer some helpful ways people can help make a difference is really important. I love your visuals and poster designs, they are professional and eye-catching and I think the name of your awareness-raising initiative “Taste Over Waste” is really catchy and memorable, and for me conveys a clear and simple message: consider food consumption and what I throw away. I also love the poster about The Ugly Carrot Netflix series, it looks intriguing, fun and makes me want to find out more. Overall your messaging comes across very positive and encouraging which I think is a great way to motivate others to get involved, learn more and actually want to start making a few changes in order to make a difference. Your bullet point list of tips to make a start is simple and straight forward and definitely makes me feel like changing some habits is achievable.
I love the design idea for a Taste Over Waste community centre to bring people together to learn more about food, cooking, growing their own food, and educate themselves more on how to consume food in a more sustainable way and reduce waste. I love the drawing to illustrate the layout of this centre, and the fact that you have considered using recycled materials to build your seating, picnic area and greenhouse to minimise your impact on the environment. I think it is great that you have considered the shape of your seating and opted for circular to maximise socialising, a sense of inclusivity and encourage the community to share ideas and work together. The compost heap is well located near the outdoor kitchen. I like the cohesion to your design and how you can make full use of the whole space: growing vegetables etc in greenhouse and allotment, cooking with them immediately, eating what you’ve cooked at the picnic area, and composting any waste at the compost site. It looks like a pleasant place to spend time! I’ve noticed there is no indoors or covered space, was this a deliberate decision? Have you considered how the centre will fair in different seasons and weathers? Do you have a location in mind of where your centre would be best built?
Great work, well done!!
This is an issue that I am really passionate about and I think your group has presented the matter in a really compelling way. The outdoor Taste Over Waste Centre is a great idea and I think would really engage people in the need to treat food and our planet with respect.
This is a really essential as well as attractive idea and I think it will be popular. We ran a weekend of communal cooking and giving away food from waste in Granby a few weeks ago and it was really popular.
But it needs careful explaining, which you’re doing. Or people can be quite prejudiced. I was involved with a national movement called the Real Junk Food project a few years ago, and I know that got lots of accusations that they were “getting dirty food out of bins!”
The issue is really well explained through the text and the images.
I like the concept, it is really interesting how it combines tackling the waste with bringing people together.
The plan is good too. I like the way it shows how the different parts can work together.
The concept here is great. Fantastic cause, good to raise awareness of the issue at stake. Food waste contributes to so many different factors so it’s hard to hit every one. You’ve definitely had a brilliant go of it.
To consider-
Is it economically ethical for everyone to only buy what they need? Gift it away? Think about food poverty, think about finances. Some people have too much money in which they will spend spend spend and waste food. Others buy in bulk and will use every last drop. Many can just about afford the bare minimum. Access to food sources, access to food banks to donate food. Time availability. Although selfish factors, definitely need to consider if it is tangible for all! Well done team.
These drawings are great! I love your concept, and well done for thinking about everything from branding, messaging, technology and physical sites to spread the word about this important message.
I wondered about the site for your recycling centre… would you recycle a building for it or would you build something new? I think the circular seating is lovely and really social. Could events happen here? I feel like it mirrors movements like the circular economy and doughnut economics. Perhaps your Taste over Waste centre could also be about education about better ways of living more widely?
Well done!