Western Australia is the food waste capital of Australia and cashed-up young people are the worst offenders

WA is the food waste capital of the country and cashed-up young people are the worst offenders, chucking out $1500 worth of bread, yoghurt, fruit and vegetables every year. A lack of confidence about how to cook some ingredients, use leftovers or decipher food packaging is driving the wastage in under 35s, who are throwing out about 70 per cent more food than their parents. The problem is contributing to the cost of living crisis and global warming — food left to rot in landfill produces the greenhouse gas methane. Just why WA is throwing out more food than the rest of the country is not entirely clear but could be down to the State’s comparatively high average incomes or the number of fly-in-fly-out workers. The average WA household throws out $1255 worth of food every year — the highest in the country ahead of Tasmania ($1251) and NSW ($1060), according to an OzHarvest report released Tuesday. For under-35s it is closer to $1500, compared to $898 for older Australians. OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn said the “shocking” results” showed 2.5 million tonnes of food were thrown out by householders across the country every year — 70 per cent of which was perfectly edible. The total size of Australia’s food waste problem, not just counting homes, is 7.6mt every year. “It reveals such a stark generational divide,” Ms Kahn said. “Young people, particularly in WA, are throwing away things like tomatoes, carrots, leafy greens, herbs and uneaten leftovers and that is shocking.” She said younger people were less confident in trusting their senses, rather than a “use by” or “best before” date on food. The former are at least intended as a guide to food safety, while the later are used by food manufacturers to predict peak taste. Nationally more than half — 58 per cent — of all households surveyed for the report said they threw away food based on those dates, rather than tasting or looking at food. “If you think about it, maybe grandparents might not have even had a refrigerator, at some point, so they were trained in tasting and smelling,” she said. “They had a much greater awareness around the value of food. “We have definitely lost the value of food. We just think more food will come, supermarkets are open all hours, we can get food 24/7 and so we have stopped valuing it as much.” Young people may also be influenced by cooking shows, which emphasise the need to follow recipes rather than experiment with food they may already have at home. Across the country,nearly half of all households surveyed for the report said they regularly wasted leftovers and high-cost vegetables like tomatoes and leafy greens. Perth mother Jenni Wilding said meal planning, growing some of her own vegetables and storing food so it would last longer had helped tackle waste in her household. “I just really don’t like throwing anything in the bins,” she said. “I always store my food, take it out of the plastic packaging and store it in Tupperware. “My boys know they cannot come home with any food in their lunchbox or, if they do, they’re eating that for afternoon tea. “I always go to the meat section in Coles and if it’s marked down I’m not afraid to take that and put it in the freezer.”