It's a waste!

It's a year since my neighbours and I embarked on recycling in our wee block of flats. We now have 7 wheelie bins for 6  households. The extra bin is for food waste - and that's the one I'm concerned about at the moment. I seem to be putting a lot of stuff into the food waste bin.

Tonight I cleared the fridge. I've got the cold so I had to rely on sell-by dates to decide what went out, rather than my nose: 3 slices of cold ham from the Sainsbury deli, a nearly full tub of tzadzike, 7 medium-sized potatoes, half a bag of lettuce, a bit of cucumber, 3 tomatoes.

I eat a lot of fresh food, as you can see, and I reckon this little lot of waste must have been worth about 8 quid.

Pretty shocking and I'm annoyed that I've allowed this to happen. In my defence, I have to say supermarkets are not geared up for dealing with single person households, despite the fact that millions of us now live alone. And I don't just mean the elderly. How about the newly divorced and separated and those between relationships or those just pissed off with relationships who decide to maintain their independence?

I always end up buying too much in the supermarket because portions only come 'family-sized' and have to rely on my family to come and take stuff away. This month I passed on to my nephew and his wife a tray of chicken joints, a packet of crackers, tortilla chips, crisps and a jar of pour over sauce. These are called bogofs in the supermarket - buy one get one free - often stuff near its sell-by date. None of these are any use to me unless I can freeze them and most I can't.

Sad to say, some of my elderly neighbours tell me they no longer buy fresh food, only frozen, although they know fresh is better for them, because it costs too much and they waste too much of the fresh stuff.

So will it ever happen? Will supermarkets stop selling to imaginary customers? The ones who live in families made up of two parents and two children and have giant chest freezers where they can store their bogofs? Will it ever be possible for the rest of us to buy wee portions at a reasonable price and not let stuff rot in our fridges?

Or is food shopping always going to be us the customers - the ones that are meant to have the choice, the ones the shops are meant to serve - buying only what the retailers want to sell us? And isn't it odd the supermarkets all want to sell us the same stuff at the same price and in the same quantities?