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Track your food footprint

Learn some simple ways to save food from ending up in the rubbish bin.

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You’ll need

  • Coloured pens or pencils
Food waste diary
PDF – 350.7KB
Download Food waste diary

Before you begin

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There’s also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
  • Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

  • You’ll need to do this activity across three sessions, and people will need to track their food waste at home too.
  • You’ll need enough copies of the ‘Food waste diary’ sheets for everyone to take one home with them. During the first week, they'll be tracking how much food they throw away, and during the second week they'll be tracking how much they can save.
    • If you don’t want to print the ‘Food waste diary’ sheets, everyone could draw their own tables to track the food they throw away or save, the meal it’s from, how it’s thrown away or saved, and who it’s saved or thrown away by.
  • You’ll also need to share the ‘Asto-nosh-ing food facts’ and ‘Easy peasy food saver tips’ with everyone. These can be found on this page. You could print them out or write them on a whiteboard or on some big pieces of paper. 

Session 1: Learn the facts

  1. Everyone should split into small groups. The person leading the activity should share the ‘Asto-nosh-ing food facts’ with each group.
  2. Everyone should chat about the 'Asto-nosh-ing food facts'.
    • How might food waste affect the group, the people they live with, their community, and other people across the world?
    • How might it affect the planet? How does it make people feel?
    • Why is it important that people do something about food waste?
  1. If you’ve got time, explore the topic further by learning about climate change or global warming. What else can you find out about the food that’s thrown away in the UK and across the world?
  2. The person leading the activity should give everyone their food diary for week one, to track how much food they throw away. They should make sure everyone understands what they need to put in each of the boxes. 
  3. Everyone should take their food diary home and put it somewhere it’s easy to see (for example, on the kitchen wall). They should complete it for a week. People can get creative with their diaries – they don’t have to stick to writing information down, they could draw or cut out pictures from old newspapers and magazines.

Session 2: Make a change

  1. Everyone should split into small groups. You might want to remind everyone to be respectful and kind to each other throughout their discussions.
  2. Everyone should chat about their food diaries. Which foods did they throw away most? Why? The ‘when’ and ‘why’ of the diary should help everyone figure this out. The people leading the activity should help everyone with their discussions.
  3. People could think about both the amount of food and the frequency. For example, a bit of bread every day might add up to a lot, while leftovers that have gone bad might be a lot of food but a one-off.
  4. Everyone should make some notes about the foods they want to try to save over the next week.
  5. You might want to gather the food diaries in and keep them somewhere safe for the next session.
  6. Everyone should look at the ‘Easy peasy food saver tips’. They should decide on two or three actions that they want to try over the next week to help them cut down on food waste.
  7. The person leading the activity should give everyone their food diary for week two, to track the food they save. They should make sure everyone understands what they need to put in each of the boxes.
  8. Everyone should share the actions they’ve chosen with the people they live with and encourage them to try their best too.
  9. Everyone should complete their new food diaries. Again, they can get creative with pictures and collages.

Session 3: Compare and share

  1. Everyone should split into small groups.
  2. Each group should compare their diaries from week one and week two. How much food did they save from the bin? How could they continue to save food in future?
  3. The person leading the activity might decide to finish up the session by turning some leftover food into a tasty meal or snack. You can find a recipe for delicious mini pizzas made of leftovers, in Make food matter. 

Get inspired to cut down on food waste with these asto-nosh-ing facts:

  • Around 3 million glasses of milk are chucked away in the UK each day. This is enough to fill 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools every year.
  • Every day 20 million slices of bread are thrown away in UK homes. This could have fed breakfast to 10 million people and, a year’s worth of wasted bread slices, laid end-to-end, could circle the Earth from pole-to-pole 28 times.
  • At least a third of all edible food produced across the world never gets eaten. This is enough to feed 2 billion people – just over a quarter of the world’s population.
  • An average British family can save £840 a year if they stopped throwing their food in the bin. This could go towards a holiday, buy 28 winter coats for young people, or pay for 32 family trips to the cinema.
  • Pop half your loaf of bread in the freezer when you get home from the shop. You can then make toast straight from the freezer and never bin a slice again.
  • A lot of food is chucked away as it’s gone off and not been eaten in time. Chill your fridge out and keep it at a lovely cool temperature of 5C or below.
  • Buy loose fruit and veg. That way you can buy only what you’ll eat, rather than buying a huge bag that you end up chucking half of in the bin.

Reflection

This activity was about being a citizen and making the world a better place. People kept diaries that showed how much food was thrown away when it could’ve been saved. How did they feel when they saved food from the bin? Was it easy to do? What did people learn in this activity? Will they change anything they do to stop more food being thrown away?

Why is it important to tackle food waste? People might remember that food waste has a huge impact on the environment because lots of resources, time, and energy go into producing food. Despite this, a third of food produced globally isn’t eaten. How could people share what they’ve learned with others in their community to make an even bigger difference?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

If it’s too difficult to keep a diary for a whole week, focus on doing a few days really well. People will still be able to see where food is wasted and saved.

  • Remember that not everyone’s home situations are similar. Some people may have less control over how food is purchased, stored, and served (for example, looked after children in residential settings or people who use food banks). If you think this is likely to affect a lot of your group, you could think about doing this activity a different way, for example, during a trip or camp.
  • There are all sorts of reasons people might find food tricky, including eating disorders and autism. Encourage everyone to be respectful and kind, and don’t single anyone out. All anyone can do is try their best!
  • Anyone who struggles with reading and writing can use pictures for their diaries. If they find maths tricky, you could spend a few minutes helping them do the adding up at the start of each session.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Cubs Global Issues Activity Badge
Scouts Environmental Conservation Activity Badge
Scouts World Challenge Award
Scouts Chef Activity Badge
Explorers Chef Activity Badge

Now that we have learnt about food waste, why not try and make these delicious meals and remember to use as much of the food items as possible. 

Try making some delicious pork and apple burgers or beef kofta tacos.

If this activity’s got people excited about stopping food waste, why not lead a campaign to help others in your community become food savers? You could do this for your Community Impact Staged Activity Badge.