‘Use by’ date bar code reader

There’s a big fuss about not wasting food at the moment, and I don’t just mean the battles at our tea table when we try to get our eight year old to eat her vegetables…  Apparently a third of the food we buy ends up in the bin. You may well have seen the fruity newspaper adverts for the Government’s ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ campaign. The website encourages people to rummage in the back of the fridge, cut the mould off that lump of cheese you find, and use it in a recipe for a nutritious cheese and old bread recipe. All this is no doubt written by a retired nanny who was brought up on war time rationing. Although I do think this website is a Good Thing.

Anyway, on to my invention… I’d like to see a device on my fridge and kitchen cupboards that could scan barcodes as the food gets put away or taken out, plus it should read the ‘Use by date’ of the food. Then in the morning it could note if food needed eating and say, ‘Eat those yoghurts!’ And it could also be used to keep tabs on any shopping that needs buying, it would know if you’d run out of eggs or were likely to be in need of cheese. Perhaps it could even print out a shopping list? Or log into Tescos to do your online shopping? 

While we’re on some kind of green/saving the planet/say ‘no’ to waste/’let’s recycle!’ theme, have you heard of Freecycle? It’s an email list where people offer things they don’t need any more to people who might be able to use them. It’s very simple, you just write to the list with an ‘Offered’ subject heading, or read other people’s ‘Wanted’s. It’s usually something like ‘Offered: Plant pots (slightly chipped)’ and ‘Wanted: Large Greenhouse (or conservatory)’ although I have sometimes seen goodies like cars and boats given away. I’ve used Freecycle to get free baby stuff, and we used ito get rid of an old (but perfectly useable) TV.  Maybe the ‘Love Food Hate waste’ people could do something similar? They could organise a way for people to get rid of food they’re not going to get through, perhaps streets could have a ’we don’t need this’ box for unwanted food. I must admit I often chuck out yoghurts when they reach their ‘use by’ date and I can’t face eating three… I’d like a way to share them instead of throwing them away. This plan needs a rethink… Maybe it would be best if it was a  ‘we don’t need this’ community fridge!

Another thrifty/recycling type idea is a way to share baby stuff. It’s amazing how much gubbins a baby needs, but they only use it for a few short months, most of it is in perfectly good shape when you no longer need it and get on to the next lot of gubbins. Perhaps it would be good if there was a club where parents could share clothes/toys/equipment for each stage of their baby’s devopment? I know there are toy libraries already, perhaps a similar service could loan out baby bath chairs and changing tables?

Lots of ideas today. Now excuse me while I eat those three chocolate mousses with todays date on them…