A staggering £10 billion worth of food is thrown away in Britain each year, a third of what we buy, according to a report published on Thursday. More than half of the 6.7 million tons of food that is thrown away each year - enough to fill Wembley Stadium eight times - is untouched and could have been eaten, according to the Government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme. Researchers found that more than £1 billion worth of wasted food was still "in date."

The study shows that the average household is throwing away £420 worth of food a year - more than previously thought - at a time when household bills are rising because of higher grain and fuel prices. The average family with children throws away food worth £610.

The study says that we throw away food for two main reasons: food gets forgotten and is left used, and we serve up too much and don't use leftovers. The £6 billion worth of food thrown away unused includes 5,500 whole chickens and more than 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots - which laid end to end would reach from Blackpool to Liverpool.

Some 440,000 untouched ready meals go into the bin, enough to reach from Oxford to Stratford-upon-Avon, and some 4.4 million apples. Experts say that stopping food waste could avoid emissions of 18 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent gases (mostly methane) each year.

That is a larger amount than previous estimates and the equivalent of taking one car in five off the roads. The survey was based solely on a study of what more than 2,000 households put in the dustbin. When the waste from business is included the amount wasted would be higher. Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP, said: "What shocked me the most was the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings."

Joan Ruddock, the Environment Minister, said: "This is costing consumers three times over. Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they don't eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates. "And then there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin."

WRAP is running a campaign called Love Food Hate Waste and has tips on its website such as keeping apples in the fridge to prolong their useful lives and toasting bread from frozen. Richard Swannell, who is responsible for domestic and garden waste at WRAP, said: "Instead of throwing apples away next time you could use them to make a smoothie or puddings.

"Historically we would have thought like that but in our busy lives we seem to have got out of the habit of these things. We do not have the data to prove it exactly, but people who remember the war say they did not waste food. They would not have thrown a whole apple away."

(By Charles Clover, Telegraph, 09/05/2008)