Can we live without waste?

Rare Earth is a new weekly podcast and radio show from BBC Radio Four which digs deeper into the biggest issues for our planet. Each week, environmental journalist Tom Heap and physicist Helen Czerski will tackle a major story about our environment and wildlife, work out how we got here and meet the brave and clever people with fresh ideas to help us- and nature- thrive.

Helen and Tom won’t shy away from the big stuff- temperatures rising while wildlife declines- but this won’t be a weekly dose of doom laden predictions and tortured hand-wringing. Rare Earth is here to celebrate the wonder of nature and meet the people determined to keep it wonderful.

In the second episode Tom and Helen ask why we're rubbish at tackling waste. Estimates suggest we could cut up to 15% of greenhouse gas emissions if we just used all the stuff that we make and grow. Fashion houses burn their unworn stock and supermarkets make late changes to their orders from farmers, leaving edible crops to go to waste. It's the one climate change solution that doesn't ask anybody to give up anything, so why can't we put a stop to waste? Tom and Helen are joined by the waste-hunting journalist, Oliver Franklin-Wallis and expert on the bio-geography of landfill, Professor Kate Spencer of Queen Mary's, University of London.

Produced by Emma Campbell for BBC Audio Wales and West in conjunction with the Open University