Sitting with her legs crossed on the dusty floor a lady aged around 40 stared vacantly at the many shoes gliding past. Her eyes were downcast. The small street where she had placed herself was a shortcut for many commuters rushing to get home for the weekend. I don’t know how long she had been sitting there. She appeared to be in no hurry to move on. Covered in long clothing she hid from passers-by. Barely anyone noticed the figure crouched on the floor. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had people tripping over her.
‘Would you like a sandwich?’ my new friend asked.
‘Yes please,’ she meekly replied.
The woman rummaged through our bag and chose a salad that took her fancy. Pret a Manger had given us their leftovers to distribute to the local homeless community. I wasn’t sure if we would find enough people to feed. We had one bag full of cakes, and two bags full of sandwiches.
I was mistaken. All the food disappeared within 10 minutes.
By Lincoln Inn’s Field a truck was serving hot food to those that were in need. Walking along the queue people were keen to grab an extra sandwich and treat while they waited patiently.
This to me was a no brainer. Limit food waste by helping the poor survive.
Roughly one third of the food produced in the world – 1.3 billion tonnes is lost or wasted per year. This has disastrous effects on our carbon footprint and economy. If food waste was a country it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world.
Save food is a charity that was founded by a PhD student at London school of economics in Holborn. The idea is to collect food from cafes that would have otherwise been thrown in the dust bin and find a use for it.
This follows the waste hierarchy which promotes the idea that waste should not be sent to landfill but should be used instead.
By giving food to homeless people we are helping them while limiting the amount of food being thrown into dumps.
Fair share is another tremendous charity that strives to save food. It focuses on the supply chain. For example, diet coke recently discarded pallets of coke because the grey in its packaging was the wrong shade of grey.
Fair share took the cans and redistributed them to those in need. This not only included homeless charities but also local communities.
The more initiatives put in place to prevent food waste the better. What do you do to limit the food that goes in your bin?
We are going on a bear hunt 
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