You can use this diary in a number of ways to help you to understand more about the food that is thrown away in your home, and how you might cut this down. You can concentrate on what's being thrown away throughout the day or just at main meal times, or you can include an estimate of how much is thrown away. You can also record why you throw away the food and how you dispose of it.

By doing this and looking back after you've completed the diary, you'll hopefully see where and how you can reduce the amount of food you have to throw away, and also how you might dispose of the food that you can't avoid throwing away in a more environmentally friendly way (such as into a compost bin). For help and advice on how to reduce food waste, and what you can do with unavoidable food waste, see lovefoodhatewaste.com.

How do i Start a food waste diary?

We suggest that you complete the diary over a period of seven days although you can keep it for a shorter or longer period, or even repeat the exercise after a while to see how successful your efforts at reducing food waste have been.

You might also want to record any tips or ideas that have helped you to throw less food away. You can even exchange top tips with others by posting your ideas here.

THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN FILLING IN THE DIARY

• Every time you dispose of food, fill in what food it is, the amount and how it was disposed of (e.g. in the regular waste bin, in the council food waste collection bin, home compost container, etc).
• For each day, there is a table for recording food thrown away for meals prepared or served in the morning, lunch time and evening. If you are throwing away snacks or have a big clearout, we'd suggest that you just include this information at the bottom of the table as outlined in the example.
• You should record information on all food thrown away, including inedible and unwanted food waste like vegetable peelings, fruit skins, bread crusts and teabags.
• If on any occasion, there is no food waste to record, please indicate on the table the reason for this (e.g. meal not eaten in the home or no food waste was created because you had a takeaway and everything was eaten.)

Good luck and have fun!