We have confirmed an additional Community Fridge session on Sunday 18th December, beginning at 12pm. Visit us at ZERO in Guildford town centre for free food.
Our wonderful supermarket suppliers donate perfectly good food nearing it's 'use by' date, helping ZERO to reduce food waste across the borough, and providing a helping hand to residents during the ever-increasing cost of living crisis.
The generosity of local supermarkets is enabling ZERO's Community Fridge team to make an extra collection from stores this Sunday 18th December, which we can then offer free to Guildford’s local community.
We are likely to receive the regular items such as bread, fruit, vegetables, and cupboard staples, but keep an eye out because there may well be a few festive surprises due to Christmas stock rotation!
The fridge will be open for visitors from 12pm.
Who can use the fridge?
The Community Fridge is FREE for anyone to use. That means you:
DO NOT need to be referred by a welfare agency or GP
DO NOT need to provide your name or address
However, we do ask that you:
Tally your visit on the attendance sheet with a simple tick for our reports
Bring your own bags and or containers to take your items home in
Treat volunteers and fellow users with respect when collecting items
Why should you visit the Community Fridge this Christmas?
We all hate waste! But Christmas is the time of year that common sense goes out the window. Without being too grinchy, it's the most wasteful time of the year, but in a cost of living crisis it's important to think about how we can change wasteful habits. Just look at the stats!
Approximately 66% of people admit to buying too much Christmas food that ends up in the bin.
This binned food usually amounts to 42 million dishes of Christmas food.
We purchase 10 million turkeys in the UK for Christmas Day.
We throw away 263,000 turkeys.
We throw away 7.5 million mince pies.
Brits cook 80 percent more food than at other times of the year.
230,000 tonnes of this food end up in the bin during the festive season.
What is the carbon footprint associated with Christmas waste?
It is estimated that turkey cooking generates 14,056 metric tonnes of CO2e in the UK.
Our trips to family and friends during the Christmas holidays results in a total of 1 billion miles driven.
The carbon impact of Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day account for 5.5 percent of the UK’s total annual carbon footprint.
How can I reduce my food waste this Christmas?
Buy loose fruit & vegetables for what you need rather than what’s on offer.
Buy food with a long use-by date so that you have enough time to use it.
Create meal plans, use leftovers, and freeze food rather than throwing it away.
Compost anything you can’t use.
ZERO’s Community Fridge: How it started and how it’s going?
ZERO opened November 2021 to help Guildford residents protect the local environment, create a healthier borough, and cut waste through education and practical projects.
The Community Fridge is a great example of this, and aims to reduce the amount of local food waste, whilst offering vital support to residents who need it. The Community Fridge enables people to collect FREE food from a town centre location with no registration or questions.
ZERO secured funding through Hubbub and Co-Op with the means to purchase a fridge, provide volunteers the legal training requirements to handle & store food, contribute to food collector’s expenses, and to advertise the service to the local community.
In addition, Co-op provided branded Community Fridge merchandise including aprons, T-shirts, badges, magnets to name a few to help promote the new venture.
The Community Fridge is open every Tuesday and Thursday at 10.30am - where everyone picks a numbered counter from a bowl which provides their number in the queue - this ensures everyone has a fair opportunity to be the first user of the day!
ZERO Community Fridge Impact
From January 2022 to November 2022 ZERO’s Community Fridge has had:
Visitors: 5,483
Total Weight of food saved: 8,762.6 kg
What’s coming next?
For 2023 the Community Fridge team will continue to work with our existing suppliers, and we are looking to add new suppliers and additional “fridge days”. Our goal is simple: Save as much food waste as possible while ZERO continues its climate action mission.
If you want to volunteer to join the Community Fridge as a driver & collector or to help with unpacking, weighing, logging data and overseeing visitors please enquire via our website - www.zerocarbonguildford.org
If you are a business that wants to support or donate supplies to the Community Fridge, please contact Julie Dickson on julie@zerocarbonguildford.org.
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