Composting food waste saves potent methane emissions from food rotting in landfill.
Instead, composting stores carbon which is then transferred to the soil creating a net carbon benefit.
It is best to avoid food waste as it wastes all the production impacts such as energy, fertilisers, transport, packaging and storage emissions. However there will always be a certain amount of unavoidable food waste such as bones, stalks, peel and shells.
All food waste can be composted. Some municipalities collect all sorts of food waste for composting. If you are home composting, cooked food, bones and meat waste can cause problems with vermin but all uncooked vegetable and fruit waste may be easily composted at home.
If space is an issue, for home composting, a wormery can process food waste efficiently indoors, producing a natural liquid fertiliser.
The average UK family wastes 330kg food a year or 6kg a week. Each person wastes 95-115kg per year. Composting this waste saves 73kgs CO2e a year per family or 25kgs CO2e per person.