We’ve all been there. You get home after a long day at the office or at school, you’re preparing to whip up a meal – only to discover that one of your ingredients has its ‘best before’ date, dated two Mondays ago.

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Slightly irritated, you bin it and either make do without or grudgingly make your way to your nearest food store to replace it. The bad news is that you literally just threw away your money because that ingredient was most likely still 100 per cent edible. The good news is that next time you can totally reconsider the disposal option. 

To start with – there’s a very clear distinction between a ‘best before’ date and a ‘use by’ date. ‘Best before’ refers to a date until which a product retains its full quality. You can still consume the product after the best before date, assuming the product has been stored in the correct conditions specified on the packaging, and that the packaging hasn’t been tampered with.

A ‘use by’ or ‘expiry’ date, on the other hand, refers to when a product is no longer safe for consumption, as it has started to deteriorate or has perished, and needs to be disposed of. Food waste that is to be disposed of should go in the organic waste bag. This is collected through kerbside collection form all localities on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 

Food waste that is to be disposed of should go in the organic waste bag

Food should be thrown into the organic waste bag without any packaging. Organic waste is quite a valuable resource. It is gathered at Wasteserv’s facilities for treatment, where it can be converted into renewable energy. This means that by properly disposing of items that have passed their ‘use by’ date, you would be reducing the impact of food waste including landfill emissions, by at least converting it into a fuel to feed into the electricity grid.

Items that can be disposed of in the white organic waste bag include expired food, bones, fruit and vegetables, ground coffee, tea bags, leftover food (although you might want to limit your waste further by packing this for your next day’s lunch), small plant trimmings (leaves and flowers), egg shells, dairy products, meat and fish, as well as papers, newspapers and tissues soiled with food waste.  But that’s not all, there are many other items too. A comprehensive list of what can and cannot be disposed of in the organic waste bag can be found at http://dontwastewaste.gov.mt/sort-it/white-bag

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