Community Fridge

Helping you access free food and reduce waste

As part of the Students' Association's Go Green Project, in November 2021 we established Community Fridges across 4 Edinburgh College campuses using funding from the Scottish Government with the aim of reducing food waste across our community. 

How does the Community Fridge work?

The community fridge is open to everyone! Anything you take from the fridge is free of charge. 

Local businesses donate food that is close to its 'use by' or 'best before' dates that they know they won't sell or will otherwise be wasted. In some circumstances, the food still has a long 'use by' date but due to mislabelling or stock preferences, the supermarkets are unable to sell them. 

You can take food if you see anything you know you will use. Please be a considerate user of the Community Fridges, we have thousands of students and want to make sure that as many people as possible can benefit from the items that are donated, so we ask that you only take a maximum of 5 items per person.

This is not a foodbank, it is a food redistribution project to reduce the amount of food wasted in our community. 

If you have any further questions about the Community Fridges, please contact the team on contact@ecsa.scot 

What is a Community Fridge?

Food waste has a big impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. Research by the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) actually concluded that if food waste was a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitting country in the world! This equates to roughly 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, so if collective action is taken to reduce food waste we could make a big reduction here.

A Community Fridge is a food storing area located in a public space. In this case our 4 Community Fridges are located near the Students' Association offices on the Sighthill, Milton Road and Midlothian campus, and in the HUB on Granton campus. The main aim of a Community Fridge is to reduce food waste, but it also works to counteract the cost-of-living crisis facing students every day. 

EC Students' Association is working in partnership with Fareshare, Neighbourly and several food retailers to collect and distribute food that would otherwise go to waste.